ROS 101: A Beginner's Perspective
Imagine you're shopping from a super shop where every grocery item you need is just a shelf away. Then all of a sudden, you start to wonder, " Wouldn't it be nice if all that I need I could find in a single simple place?" We all know the hassle of gathering the necessities from different places, which sometimes feels like exploring half of the globe [ Pun intended ].
Well, the same analogy applies to robotics. Imagine again, or I assume that you are a beginner in robotics. To build a robot, you need to find all the software you require from the beginning. But, as you're entirely new to robotics, gathering resources from a vast range of very different places is an ordeal task, not to mention, you need to know which ones you require first. But why spend time gathering resources when you can find all that you need to develop your robot software from scratch in the same place? And that's where ROS kicks in.
ROS stands for Robot Operating System. It's a meta operating system that sits on top of a traditional operating system. It gives you a collection of a wide range of software libraries, tools and so on for robot software development. On top of that, It -
1. Is open-source [ Free! Free! Free!].
2. Has a vast quantity of resources.
3. Comes with packages for almost everything for robot development.
4. Is language-agnostic which means you can use both C++ and Python.
5. Is released under BSD license that allows you to modify and use the code for commercial purposes.
So, what are you waiting for !? Switch to ROS TODAY! Here is a short(!) tutorial to get you started with ROS. I hope you have fun on your journey with ROS.