Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta released (Think RDS gets Kinected)

Microsoft Robotics Blog - Announcing Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta

"In my July blog post, we announced the Kinect Services for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) and I promised that we would have some exciting announcements this fall. It is my pleasure to announce the release of RDS 4 Beta available as a free of charge download at Microsoft.com/robotics.

...

For the first time we define a Kinect-based hardware reference platform that can help in the delivery of an affordable and capable robot that will be able to support technologies and scenarios for the consumer audience. Most everyone can build a robot using this specification, and we are working with robotic hardware vendors that will make kits and preassembled units available. The first such kit is called EDDIE and it is available from Parallax for pre-order now. EDDIE is intended to be a turnkey solution for using RDS with this platform and our aspiration is that there will be development and sharing of technology for this hardware platform. In addition, we made sure that there is an accurate representation of a robot that is based on the hardware platform in our simulation environment. You can start developing your applications in the simulator before you decide to buy and run them on a physical robot.

The second additional feature in RDS 4 is beta the availability of Kinect services that support the Kinect for Windows SDK capabilities shipped by Microsoft earlier this summer. You will be able to use the CCR/DSS programming model to access all of the Kinect for Windows SDK functionality. This unlocks a whole new world around Human Robot Interaction (HRI) with the use of skeleton tracking and speech. But we are also making available the raw sensor stream for your use in building additional capabilities such as navigation algorithms. As a matter of fact, we are shipping an obstacle avoidance service that fuses the Kinect input with the other proximity sensors to demonstrate how the sensor array can be used to intelligently perform directional based navigation.

..."

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta

"...

Version: 2.3.186.1
Date Published: 9/16/2011
Language: English
File Name: Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta.exe
Size: 286.0 MB

Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta enables hobbyists and professional or non-professional developers to create robotics applications targeting a wide range of scenarios. This release is an update that has the functionality of the previous Standard Edition with the addition of support for the Kinect sensor and a defined Reference Platform.

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio can support a broad set of robotics platforms by either running directly on the platform (if it has an embedded PC running Windows) or controlling it from a Windows PC through a communication channel such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth®.

In addition to providing support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta provides a Visual Programming Language (VPL) which allows developers to create applications simply by dragging and dropping components onto a canvas and wiring them together.

The powerful Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) provides a high-fidelity simulation environment powered by NVIDIA™ PhysX™ engine for running game-quality 3D simulations with real-world physics interactions.

Tutorials that illustrate how to write applications ranging from simple "Hello Robot" to complex applications that simultaneously run on multiple robots.

..."

Robotics! Kinect! Hardware! 'nuff said.