Presentation from Houston TechFest 2013.

1. 0
Robotics And .Net
Philip Wheat
Singularity Innovations

2. 1
The State of Robotics
• After being a “up and coming” technology for
almost 50 years, Robotics is now coming into the
mainstream
• While Self Driving Cars, Roombas, and Drones
take front stage – factors such as 3D printers are
helping push the boundaries
• Internet of Things push will continue to create
more forms and usages of Robotics

3. 2
The State of .Net
• .Net can be found from the top of the computing
world to the bottom
• As a managed environment though, .Net still
provides some challenges
• Microsoft Robotics Studio seems to be on hiatus
• Managed languages on the rise in lots of places
• Javascript is now a key language again

4. 3
So what gives?
• Lots of .Net experience in the world
• Managed Languages still help rapid development
• Javascript performance is up, but requires good
hardware to accelerate
• Robotics still has a lot of incompatible approaches
• .Net has lots of depth for approaching most
problems.
• Stack needs to be mixed – you need the correct
software environment at the correct level

5. 4
Examples of Uses
• Mission Planner for ArduCopter/Plane

6. 5
Examples of Uses
• Guesture controlled Skateboards

7. 6
Examples of Uses
• Robotic Shopping cart

8. 7
Parts of your Robotic System
• Robots have 3 basic parts
– Inputs (your sensors)
– Processor (your control process)
– Outputs (your action systems)
• Turtles aren’t just for beginning programming (ie,
each of these systems can be made up of the
same 3 systems.)
• Know the boundaries and focus on those

9. 8
Inputs (sensors)
• Sensors can be a .Net target or not – primarily
depending on complexity
• Many sensors are either tightly integrated to their
processors or may even require no processors
• Larger scale sensors such as vision systems are a
target for

10. 9
Processor
• Put high level control here
• Balance resources with need
• .Net allows lots of flexibility in resources

11. 10
Outputs
• Direct control is useful
• Systems with output should have heartbeats
• Balance resources with responsiveness