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Willow Garage’s Noble Open Source Effort

By Frank Tobe | May 7, 2010

11 open source Personal Robots (PR2s) and their open source ROS (robotic operating system) were given away to encourage sharing systems, equipment and tools.

Willow Garage is up against many entrenched obstacles in their quest for commonality and open source robotic equipment and software. One cartoon shows that typical robotics grad students spend 70% of their time re-inventing the wheel. If true, standardization appears to be needed.

About The Author

Frank Tobe

Frank Tobe is the founder of The Robot Report and co-founder of ROBO Global which has developed a tracking index for the robotics industry, the ROBO Global™ Robotics & Automation Index. The index of ~90 companies in 13 sub-sectors tracks and captures the entire economic value of this global opportunity in robotics, automation and enabling technologies.