Back in February, we reported on Cogmation's robotSuite. Since then they have released the promised Windows version of their software. So we took this opportunity to talk with Cogmotion's Director of Research and Development, Shawn Schaerer.
Is your target audience professional engineers, hobbyists, or a mixture of the two?
Both, really. Our software makes it easy for hobbyists and engineers to develop and simulate robots. We have tried to make it accessible to inexperienced users without taking any power away from more advanced users.
How long does it take to get a simple robot working?
A novice user running through a tutorial can get a simple tele-operated robot going in around ten minutes - either in a simulated environment, or the real world.
Do you have any industry partners building robots with your tools yet?
We are currently in talks with a couple of major robot manufactures and have recently partnered with Systronix Inc to include their TrackBot educational robot in robotSuite.
We are always looking for new partnerships, and expanding robotSuite with new devices is advantageous to everyone. We definitely encourage any potential vendors / manufacturers to visit www.cogmation.com and contact us if they would like to be involved.
How does Mono and Open Source Computer Vision Library fit into the picture?
Both of these projects have been crucial in the development of robotSuite. We would really like to thank everyone in both communities for their support. We use OpenCV as a base for all of our cross platform computer vision / image processing algorithms and video capture support, and Mono is the main engine behind robotSuite. We use it to compile the robot code developed in robotFoundry and run that code on OSX, Linux and Windows. Mono really has simplified the picture for us, and allowed us to further the capabilities of robotSuite without a lot of extra effort.