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Software for Research: Pioneer SDK

Pioneer SDK robotics research software architectureThe Pioneer SDK is a collection of libraries and applications that come with every MobileRobots ground platform and with selected accessories.

The standard Pioneer SDK bundled with every robot at no extra charge includes the open-source ARIA with ArNetworking, the MobileEyes and Mapper 3-Basic networked GUI applications, SonARNL and MobileSim. ARIA,  ArNetworking and MobileSim are full-featured, well-documented and open-source, so you have easy access to all MobileRobots platforms from a versatile and customizable software environment. That's expected, really. But more important is MobileRobots' software reliability and support. ARIA and ARNL, for instance, are the best-in-class software foundation for MobileRobots' Motivity commercial- and industrial-ready autonomous localization and navigation systems that have been deployed in mobile platforms performing unattended operations for over several million miles in factories and hospitals around the world. So you can be sure they will work for you and work very well. And we have a dedicated team of software experts who answer your email questions usually within a few hours of receipt.

All software is available for both Linux and Windows.

ARIA Core Library

ARIA provides an interface and framework for controlling and receiving data from all MobileRobots platforms, as well as most accessories (some devices also have separate interface libraries). ARIA also has utilities useful for writing robot control software as well as tools for writing cross-platform (Windows and Linux) code and support for network sockets and threads. As a companion of ARIA, ArNetworking provides a simple, extensible framework for client-server network programming. Included with all robots.  The ARIA library is available for use with gcc on Linux and Visual C++ on Windows.  Full source code is included under the terms of the GPL.

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Intelligent Robot Positioning and Navigation Libraries

Software libraries implementing reliable, high quality, highly configurable, intelligent navigation and positioning capabilities are provided with every robot platform. Accessory-bundled Pioneer SDK libraries include ARNL, MOGS and  SONARNL. ARNL enables robust, laser-based autonomous localization and navigation. Use MOGS to fuse robot and DGPS sensor data to guide your mobile robots outdoors. Robots without these accessories ship with basic SONARNL sonar-based approximate localization and navigation. The navigation libraries are available for use with g++ on Linux and Visual C++ on Windows. 

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MobileSim Simulator

MobileSim is an open-source application based on Stage that MobileRobots engineers have customized and extended to best simulate all our platforms and many accessories.  Full source code is available.  Available for both Windows and Linux.

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MobileEyes

Graphical user interface client for remove operation and monitoring of the robot. Included with all robots. Available for both Windows and Linux.

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Mapper3

Tool for creating and editing map files for use with ARIA, MobileSim, and navigation software. Included with all robots. Available for both Windows and Linux.

Speech Recognition and Synthesis Libraries

Easy-to-use C++ development libraries for speech recognition based on the open source Sphinx2 system and for speech synthesis (text-to-speech) based on either the open source Festival synthesizer  or higher quality Cepstral synthesizer. Available for both Windows and Linux.

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ACTS Color Tracking System

Software application to read images from camera and track the position and sizes of multiple color regions (information can be incorporated into your own software via ARIA). Free demo version available. Available for both Windows and Linux.

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Other Software

All accessory devices are provided with necessary drivers, and any supporting software provided by their original manufacturers, including the following:

Accessory

Software

Cyton Pioneer Arm

Control library; ACTIN user interface and inverse kinematics solver

MobileRanger C3D

Library for obtaining range information or images from hardware

Bumblebee Color Stereo Camera

Tools and libraries for obtaining and processing images

PowerCube arm for PowerBot

ArPowerCube cross platform library for manipulating joint modules individually or together as an arm, and gripper