The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) this week announced the launch of the similarly named Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA). The brand new initiative is designed to keep up development for and maintenance of open source robotics projects, with a specific give attention to the OSRF’s own robot operating system (ROS).
First released in 2007 by erstwhile Bay Area incubator Willow Garage, ROS has played a foundational role in robotics development for many years. In a show of support, Nvidia and Qualcomm have each signed on as “Platinum” members for the brand new alliance, together with Alphabet’s X spinout Intrinsic.
“Nvidia develops with ROS 2 to bring accelerated computing and AI to developers, researchers, and business applications,” Nvidia VP Gordon Grigor notes in a release tied to the news. “As an inaugural platinum member of OSRA, we’ll collaborate to advance open-source robotics throughout the ecosystem by aiding development efforts and providing governance and continuity.”
In the identical release, Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White notes, “From the many contributions made by our team at Intrinsic across projects like ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF as a part of the Open Robotics community, to our acquisition of the Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), we’ve invested deeply within the open source community, and we sit up for continuing our support of the ecosystem as an inaugural member of the OSRA.”
Intrinsic acquired Open Robotics’ business wing on the tail end of 2022. Former Open Robotics CEO Brian Gerkey (who current serves as Intrinsic’s CTO) has been appointed to the OSRA’s board of directors.
So far as the hierarchy is worried, this appears to be standard tech industry consortium stuff. The OSRF calls it a “a mixed membership and meritocratic model,” within the vein of open source alliances just like the Linux Foundation. After all, the extent or meritocratic presentation depends upon the extent of membership a corporation commits to — though pricing notably goes up based on headcount.
Together with ROS, the OSRA is tasked with governing Open Robotics’ Gazebo simulator, and Open-RMF, which is designed to function a typical language to extend robotic system interoperability across firms. Definitely the inclusion of tech behemoths like Nvidia and Qualcomm should go a ways toward helping cement such standards. Each firms are involved within the creation of reference design robots, which function the muse for various robot makers.
Other members include Clearpath and PickNik Robotics. Silicon Valley Robotics is serving as an associate member, while Ubuntu developer Canonical is serving in a support role.
