Robotic Management System

Working with ROS (Robot Operating System), I had an idea to create a GUI for its configuration. The basic configuration includes:

• URDF (file describing the robot’s structure with its 3D model)
• Broker - for message exchange
• SLAM configuration - which could be delivered as a package

Generally, it would be relatively easy to create a GUI for robot configuration.

I imagine it could be a system similar to WordPress. For example, you buy a TurtleBot robot, and it already has the system and UI pre-installed. The URDF would be created by the robot manufacturer, and you’d have several SLAM packages with pre-configured navigation.

Most of the work during the initial robot configuration involves connecting everything to make it work together. It’s like dependency systems for Linux - if you remember the times when Linux didn’t have package managers like apt, but you installed packages using pkgd or compiled them… it was dependency hell.

Currently, we have a similar situation in ROS, but we could create a system where multiple packages are pre-configured and set up together.

Going further, we could add various plugins:

• Battery management, status, charging, and switches to display them
• Remote robot control panel (we already do this, but without a GUI)
• Default log panel
• Panel for triggering specific actions when certain logs appear
• Task automation and decision trees (poorly supported in ROS)

Overall, robotics is severely underfunded when it comes to software development. We need to create a CMS for robots - a Robotic Management System (RMS) with plugins, debugging tools, and packages.

A package would be a group of solutions, for example:

• Charging and docking systems
• Touch screen systems for user interaction
• Robot touch sensor systems
• Robot head movement systems
• Robot eye display systems

Manufacturers could create entire solution packages for robotics with software that easily integrates with RMS.

With this approach, robotics would advance significantly.