If you have ever worked with ROS and tried to figure out where your robot’s sensors are pointing, you have probably run into the term “TF Tree.” I remember my first week debugging a robot arm that kept picking up the wrong objects. The problem was not my code. The problem was that I did … Read more
If you have started working with ROS 2 and heard people mention DDS, you are not alone in wondering what it actually does. DDS is the hidden engine that makes ROS 2 nodes find each other, share sensor data, and survive flaky Wi-Fi on a busy factory floor. In this guide, I will walk you … Read more
ROS 1 reached end of life on May 31, 2025, and teams still running Noetic on production robots are now running unsupported software. After two years of triaging bug reports, security advisories, and package incompatibilities for our own robotics clients, our team has a clear view on when the migration is worth it and when … Read more
Offline robot programming (OLP) is a method of programming industrial robots using computer software in a virtual environment, eliminating production downtime by removing the need to stop the actual robot for programming. Also called OLRP (offline robot programming), this approach lets engineers create, test, and refine robot programs on a PC, then deploy the finished … Read more
When developers ask me about ROS 1 vs ROS 2, I tell them this is not a minor version bump. ROS 2 is a full architectural rewrite that removes the ROS Master, swaps the build system, and adds real-time and security features that ROS 1 was never designed to provide. If you are picking a … Read more
When I first heard the term “Robot Operating System” years ago, I assumed it was a competing alternative to Windows or Linux. It is not. ROS is something far more interesting: an open-source collection of software libraries and tools that lets engineers and hobbyists build robot applications without rewriting the same code from scratch on … Read more
Imitation learning for robots is a technique where machines learn to perform tasks by watching and copying human demonstrations rather than following hand-coded instructions. Instead of programming every motor command, an operator shows the robot what to do, and a neural network learns to reproduce the behavior. I have spent the last several months digging … Read more
Reinforcement learning in robotics is a machine learning approach where a robot learns physical tasks by trial and error, refining its behavior through rewards until it masters skills no engineer could hand-code. If you have ever watched a quadruped robot stumble, fall, and get back up again in a simulator, you have seen reinforcement learning … Read more
When I first watched a small mobile robot roll across my workshop floor and stop precisely in front of a misplaced screwdriver, I realized how far robotic vision had come. That robot was not following a magnetic strip or a pre-programmed line. It was actively seeing, recognizing, and reacting to an object in its path. … Read more
If you’ve ever watched a robot pick up a part, dodge an obstacle, or follow a colored ball, there’s a good chance OpenCV was doing the seeing. It’s the most widely used open-source computer vision library in robotics, and it powers everything from hobbyist rovers to industrial pick-and-place arms. In this guide, I’ll walk you … Read more