Market trends and business perspectives
by Sam Francis
Electronics giant Sony has invested an undisclosed sum in a company called Acutronic Robotics, which specialises in the Hardware Robot Operating System, or H-ROS.
This is according to a report on TechCrunch.com, which says Sony may be looking to use H-ROS as a way to consolidate the disparate robotics landscape to some extent.
The company associated with Acutronic is Erle Robotics, which has built a range of components and machines – such as drones, small cars, and computing boards.
A new version of the Robot Operating System has been launched, and this is one for the machines.
Officially called the Hardware Robot Operating System, the new solution is described as “a standardized software and hardware infrastructure to easily create reusable and reconfigurable robot hardware parts”.
Writing on Robohub.org, Victor Mayoral, CEO of Acutronic Robotics and a researcher at the Open Source Robotics Foundation, says H-ROS means “constructing robots will no longer be restricted to a small elite with high technical skills”.
H-ROS was initially funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency through the Robotics Fast Track program in 2016 and developed by Erle Robotics.
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