Enabling a National Instruments DaNI 2.0 robotic development platform for the Robot Operating System

Abstract

Robotic research has recently undergone a paradigm shift as robots have switched from fixed factory floors to more mobile based platforms. This shift has presented many new challenges to the robotic research community. Development of novel robot bases, such as TurtleBot, in concert with the widespread use of robotic frameworks, such as Robot Operating System and MyRobotlab, has given researchers indispensable tools that allows for rapid development and deployment of new localization and mapping techniques. The goal of these new robot bases and frameworks is to ensure that progression in research is not hindered by the burden of lower abstractions, such as sensory setup or drive mechanisms and mechanics, but rather allows the researcher to focus on the complexity of executing higher level algorithms. This paper presents research on integrating the National Instruments DaNI 2.0 robot into the growing group of robot operating system ready mobile robot platforms. This paper presents the programming and developmental process of enabling the DaNI 2.0 robot to operate within the Robot Operating System framework and highlights the chief characteristics that separate the DaNI 2.0 from current Robot Operating System enabled robotic platforms.