Microsoft announced at the ROSCon 2018 conference in Spain that it is bringing the so‑called robotic operating system, also known as ROS1, to Windows 10.
This technology, which falls under the libraries and tools for building complex robots, will be further strengthened with Microsoft solutions such as Windows machine learning, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure IoT cloud services, and many more.
Microsoft says it has joined the industrial ROS consortium to invest in industrial robots and is collaborating with Open Robotics and the industrial ROS consortium to bring the robotic operating system to Windows.
“Windows is a reliable partner for robotic and industrial systems for decades. With ROS for Windows, developers will be able to use the familiar Visual Studio toolset along with rich AI and cloud features“, the company said in a statement.
At the conference in Spain, Microsoft also unveiled its own robot, called the ROBOTIS Turtlebot 3, which is powered by a special version of the Robot operating system called Melodic Morenia.
The software has been specifically developed to recognize and direct toward the face that is closest to the robot. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is the platform that brings the robot to life and Microsoft says it is based on an Intel NUC Coffee Lake.
“Industries that see the benefits of robots are many and as diverse among themselves as manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and real estate. As robots have advanced, so have development tools. We see robotics with artificial intelligence as a globally accessible technology for enhancing human capabilities », explains Microsoft.
The company is using the conference in Madrid to showcase a simulation environment of the robotic operating system running on the Azure , showing how Azure IoT Hub can be used to easily control a group of robots.
