Orocos participation

Dear Herman,

The French nuclear research center near Paris is CEA, Fontenay-aux-Roses.
:-)

We have been developping for the last few years a computer aided telerobotic
system called TAO2000. The main features of the controller part of TAO2000
are :

  - multi-robot distributed controller (the number of controlled robots is
limited only by performance issues) with the following control modes =>
	* joint or cartesian control
      * full manual or mixed manual-automactic modes with force feedback
      * mixed position-force control via virtual mechanism specification
  - hardware portability (currently runs on VME PowerPC, PC x86 with or
without DSP).
  - manipulator genericity (currently runs on hydraulic 6 DOF manipulator
and electric 6 or 7 DOF manipulators with redundancy management. It has even
been used to control a mobile robot by one of our industrial partner).
  - integrated tuning and maintenance subsystem which allows distributed
sampling and on-line configuration.

Sadly, as you mentionned in an earlier message, this system is not free or
open source and is not likely to become free any soon.

I am not writing this message to sell you TAO2000, but to tell you that we
believe in the future of free and open source frameworks and would be very
interested in joining the Orocos project, and participate to developments,
providing the know-how we acquired during TAO2000 development.
We may work on :
- core component identification
- real-time servo control (especially if there are "manual" modes or mixed
"position-force" control modes)
- sensor device drivers (I would rather call that I/O device drivers or
sensors and actuators device drivers).
- robot kinematics and dynamics
- task specification
- user interface
- documentation and advocacy

On a practical point of view, as the deadline is on January, the 15th, what
do you expect from us for the next few days ?

Pascal Gicquel
---------------
Teleoperation Laboratory
CEN/FAR BP6 92265 FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES CEDEX FRANCE
email : [email protected]
phone : (33) 1 46 54 89 72
fax : (33) 1 46 54 75 80