Open Source Robotics Foundation teams up with Toyota Research Institute for software research

Tools for robotics and autonomous vehicles central to the two organisations

The Open Source Robotics Foundation and the Toyota Research Institute are to work together on developing new robotics and automation technologies. 

In addition, TRI has made a charitable contribution of $1 million to OSRF to support the organization’s goals to develop and promote the growth of the open source robotics community and to support the development of the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo.

Gill Pratt, TRI CEO, says: “I’ve witnessed first-hand the value of the Open Source Robotics Foundation. Of the 23 teams that competed in the Darpa Robotics Challenge 18 used ROS and 14 used Gazebo.

“Through this charitable contribution, TRI will support efforts to grow the capabilities of ROS and Gazebo, not only for TRI, but also for the hundreds of thousands of members of the open source robotics community.” 

Brian Gerkey, CEO of OSRF, says: “Our relationship with TRI is an important milestone for the robotics community; a milestone that’s been built on the generous efforts of thousands of contributors and hundreds of thousands of users worldwide that helped to make ROS and Gazebo the standards that they are today.

“We look forward to working with TRI to help grow and extend their capabilities and sharing any open source improvements back to the community.”

ROS is a collection of tools and libraries that simplify the task of creating and programming robotic platforms and applications.

Gazebo is a robot simulator with which developers can test concepts in a high-fidelity virtual environment and users can rapidly test algorithms, design robots, and perform regression testing using realistic scenarios.

Both ROS and Gazebo are open source software and overseen by OSRF. ROS and Gazebo have both grown to become the de facto programming platform and simulator, respectively, for roboticists all over the world.

OSRF also today announced it has formed a subsidiary company, Open Source Robotics Corporation, which is a taxable subsidiary that supports the goals of its parent, OSRF, and the global open source robotics community. OSRF will continue to create and distribute open source and free-of-charge applications for the robotics community, including ROS and Gazebo.

TRI is a research and development enterprise designed to bridge the gap between fundamental research and product development. TRI signed a consulting agreement with the newly-formed Open Source Robotics Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary of OSRF.