Software
Related papers: 20
About
Software in robotics and AI refers to the collection of programs, frameworks, libraries, and tools that enable robots and intelligent systems to sense, reason, plan, and act. It encompasses everything from low-level embedded firmware and middleware—such as the Robot Operating System (ROS) or PX4—to high-level libraries for motion planning (OMPL), perception (Point Cloud Library), simulation (Gazebo, Webots), optimization (CasADi), and machine learning. These software components provide the computational backbone that connects hardware sensors and actuators to intelligent behaviors, allowing robots to perform tasks like navigation, manipulation, mapping, and human interaction. Software matters in robotics because it dramatically accelerates development: reusable, open-source frameworks reduce the need to rebuild fundamental capabilities from scratch, enable reproducible benchmarking, and allow researchers and engineers to focus on novel problems. Simulation environments let teams test algorithms safely before deploying on physical hardware. Collectively, the software ecosystem defines how quickly the field advances—standardized tools foster collaboration, lower entry barriers for students and engineers, and create shared infrastructure upon which increasingly capable autonomous systems can be built.
Top Researchers
Jean-Jacques Slotine
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Christoph Stiller
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Kevin P. Murphy
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Sebastian Thrun
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Rodney A. Brooks
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Oussama Khatib
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Amjad J. Humaidi
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Ayad Q. Al-Dujaili
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Morgan Quigley
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Richard M. Murray
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Top Cited Papers
Machine learning a probabilistic perspective
Kevin P. Murphy
Citations: 9328 • 2012
ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System
Morgan Quigley
Citations: 7182 • 2009
3D is here: Point Cloud Library (PCL)
Radu Bogdan Rusu, Steve Cousins
Citations: 4825 • 2011
CasADi: a software framework for nonlinear optimization and optimal control
Joel A.E. Andersson, Joris Gillis, Greg Horn, James B. Rawlings, Moritz Diehl
Citations: 3693 • 2018
Design and use paradigms for gazebo, an open-source multi-robot simulator
Nathan Koenig, A. Howard
Citations: 3446 • 2005
Stanley: The robot that won the DARPA Grand Challenge
Sebastian Thrun, Mike Montemerlo, Hendrik Dahlkamp, David Stavens, Andrei Aron, James Diebel, Philip Fong, John T. Gale, Morgan Halpenny, Gabriel Hoffmann, Kenny Lau, Celia M. Oakley, Mark Palatucci, Vaughan Pratt, Pascal Stang, Sven Strohband, Cédric Dupont, Lars‐Erik Jendrossek, Christian Koelen, Charles Markey, Carlo Rummel, Joe van Niekerk, Eric L. N. Jensen, Philippe Alessandrini, Gary Bradski, Bob Davies, Scott Ettinger, Adrian Kaehler, Ara Nefian, Pamela Mahoney
Citations: 2109 • 2006
The Open Motion Planning Library
Ioan A. Şucan, Mark Moll, Lydia E. Kavraki
Citations: 1600 • 2012
Universal robotic gripper based on the jamming of granular material
Eric Brown, Nicholas Rodenberg, John R. Amend, Annan Mozeika, E. Steltz, M. R. Zakin, Hod Lipson, Heinrich M. Jaeger
Citations: 1554 • 2010
The Player/Stage Project: Tools for Multi-Robot and Distributed Sensor Systems
Brian Gerkey, Richard Vaughan, Andrew Howard
Citations: 1453 • 2003
A new technique for fully autonomous and efficient 3D robotics hand/eye calibration
R. Tsai, R. Lenz
Citations: 1343 • 1989
ALLIANCE: an architecture for fault tolerant multirobot cooperation
Lynne E. Parker
Citations: 1298 • 1998
Cyberbotics Ltd. Webots <sup>™</sup> : Professional Mobile Robot Simulation
Olivier Michel
Citations: 1240 • 2004
Introduction to Embedded Systems - A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach
Edward Ashford Lee, Sanjit A. Seshia
Citations: 1179 • 2013
A flexible and scalable SLAM system with full 3D motion estimation
Stefan Kohlbrecher, Oskar von Stryk, Johannes Meyer, Uwe Klingauf
Citations: 1083 • 2011
Optuna: A Next-generation Hyperparameter Optimization Framework
Citations: 995 • 2019
RTAB‐Map as an open‐source lidar and visual simultaneous localization and mapping library for large‐scale and long‐term online operation
Mathieu Labbé, François Michaud
Citations: 949 • 2018
Towards Flexible Teamwork
M. Tambe
Citations: 902 • 1997
A robotics toolbox for MATLAB
Peter Corke
Citations: 838 • 1996
Experiences with an interactive museum tour-guide robot
Wolfram Burgard, Armin B. Cremers, Dieter Fox, Dirk Hähnel, Gerhard Lakemeyer, Dirk Schulz, Walter Steiner, Sebastian Thrun
Citations: 817 • 1999
The YCB object and Model set: Towards common benchmarks for manipulation research
Berk Çallı, Arjun Singh, Aaron Walsman, Siddhartha S Srinivasa, Pieter Abbeel, Aaron M. Dollar
Citations: 807 • 2015