RE: preparation of partner selection...

Dear Prof. Bruyninckx,

please regard Profactor and INFA (Technical University Vienna) as ONE group
when it comes to partner formation for OROCOS. We are co-operating very
strongly, thus, it doesn't matter for Markus and me who will be the official
consortium partner (if you decide to include one of us :-)

It is clear, that we can not compete with Henrik Christensen's mass of human
resources (especially not people paid by other means :-). Nevertheless, I
believe, that Profactor could contribute to the project in the following
aspects (Markus Vincze has already posted his focus of experience and
interest, so I will not repeat that again):

- real-time sensor data integration (e.g., sonar, vision, range)
- mobile manipulation
- active, real-time, "whole-arm" obstacle avoidance for redundant robots
- control architecture and algorithms for kinematically redundant robots
(e.g., 7-DOF)
- 3D data visualisation based on OpenInventor (now LGPL'ed!) and Coin
(http://www.coin3d.org)
- multi-agent/holonic manufacturing systems

Your latest proposal about the brainstorming sessions sounds very useful,
especially if there is only place for 5 partners in the consortium. OROCOS
has to have a broad basis and should definitely not become "yet another
european project between selected, exquisite research groups". So, in my
opinion there is a strong need for such meetings and i really hope that
there will be funding too.

All the best,

Kurt Häusler
Profactor Produktionsforschungs GmbH
Wehrgrabeng. 1 - 5
A-4400 Steyr
Austria
Tel.:   ++43(0)7252/884-221
Fax.:  ++43(0)7252/884-244
Email: [email protected] 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Herman Bruyninckx [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Dienstag, 02. Jänner 2001 13:56
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Orocos] preparation of partner selection...


Dear all,

tomorrow I will decide on the formation of the consortium for the
project to be funded by the EU's IST programme.
(See <http://www.orocos.org/proposal.html> if you are not yet
aware of this projcet proposal).

As I said before, the EU wants to have:

- a rather small project (5 man for 2 years)

- an emphasis on the lowest foundations of the software (for OROCOS,
  this would mean: real-time motion and servo, basic kinematics and
  dynamics, basis of ``intelligent'' sensor processing, etc. (See
  above-mentioned proposal page for the more detailed work package
  descriptions.)

This means I will opt for a consortium with 5 partners, with the following
two features:

- large group (in experience and/or number of people that can
  cooperate, even without explicit funding from the EU);

- experience in the work packages of orocos.

This also means only about half of the groups that have already
expressed their interest in OROCOS will be present in the consortium :-(

However, I want to launch the following idea: because of, both, the
large interest in the project, and the general features of open source
projects, it is worthwhile to have every group involved in one way or
another. Therefore, I propose to ask for funding to organize several
(two-days) brainstorming sessions, to which not only the consortium
partners are invited (and funded) but also the other ``founding
partners''. I was thinking to have these brainstorming sessions at the
beginning of the project, and after each Milestone (in order to
prepare the following ones); the funding would consist of (cheap)
travel and lodging. For ten ``founding partners'' this would mean a
budget of, roughly speaking, 40 (4 milestones x 10 people) times a
budget of 500 Euro = 20 000 Euro.

What is your opinion about this suggestion? (Please, don't respond to
me in private, but use the mailinglist, at
 <http://mail.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos>.

Best regards,

Herman

-- 
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We hire Linux programmer: <http://www.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/~bruyninc/jobs>