ROS Summer School in Aachen, 2023

Localising one's own location, perceiving spatial boundaries and locating targets: This is only a small part of what the participants are supposed to "teach" their autonomous robots during the ROS Summer School. The two-week summer school is organised by the MASKOR Institute under the direction of Prof. Dr. Stephan Kallweit. The participants have come from all over the world, for example from South Africa and Sweden.

Step by step through the ROS Summer School programme

In the first few days of the Summer School, theory is first on the curriculum until this can then be transferred to the small robots. The Robot Operating System (ROS) is an open-source software framework that greatly simplifies the creation of programme code for autonomous robots and is considered the standard in mobile autonomous robotics. Most robots consist of actuators that can be moved, as well as sensors and control systems. For a robot to be able to perform a task, the various components must work together seamlessly. In addition to the communication basis, ROS offers further algorithms for localisation and autonomous navigation. With the help of the program libraries provided by the system, the applications can be extended in a simple modular way. These software libraries are created by a large, international community and are constantly being further developed.

What you have learned is shown in the Competition

At the end of the ROS Summer School, there is a competition in which the robots compete against each other with the applications designed by the teams. One of the tasks is to programme the robot in such a way that it can navigate in a small maze of cardboard boxes and find all the "April tags" (black and white position markers) as quickly as possible. In doing so, the robot has to navigate between the cardboard walls as smoothly as possible. The faster the robot finds all the position markers, the more points it scores for the team. If it touches a wall, points are deducted. "I always find it amazing how quickly the participants learn to work with ROS within the two weeks," noted Patrick Wiesen, Research Assistant at the MASKOR Institute.

Cultural exchange and internationality

In addition to the official events, the programme also included a guided tour through Aachen and joint meetings in the evening, where the participants could further exchange ideas. "I particularly like the opportunity to get to know other people and cultures at the ROS Summer School," reported Oliver Tiessen, who worked as a tutor at the ROS Summer School. The Summer School also provides the opportunity for the international participants to spread the programming work with ROS to other countries.

04.09.2023 | by Julia Marcussen