Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Microsoft RDS, MRDS) is a Windows-based environment for robot control and simulation. It is aimed at academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers and handles a wide variety of robot hardware.

RDS is based on CCR (Concurrency and Coordination Runtime), a .NET-based concurrent library implementation, for managing asynchronous, parallel tasks using message-passing and DSS (Decentralized Software Services), a lightweight services-oriented runtime, which allows the orchestration of multiple services to achieve complex behaviors.

Features include: a visual programming tool, Microsoft Visual Programming Language, for creating and debugging robot applications, web-based and windows-based interfaces, 3D simulation (including hardware acceleration), easy access to a robot's sensors and actuators and support for a number of languages including C# and Visual Basic .NET, JScript, and IronPython.

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio includes support for packages to add other services to the suite. Those currently available include Soccer Simulation and Sumo Competition by Microsoft, and a community-developed Maze Simulator, a program to create worlds with walls that can be explored by a virtual robot.

Components

There are four main components in RDS:

• CCR (Concurrency and Coordination Runtime)
• DSS (Decentralized Software Services)
• VPL (Visual Programming Language)
• VSE (Visual Simulation Environment)

CCR and DSS are also available separately for use in commercial applications that require a high level of concurrency and/or must be distributed across multiple nodes in a network. This package is called the CCR and DSS Toolkit.

Tools

Simulated robot and environment in MRDS

The tools that allow to develop a MRDS application contain a graphical environment (Microsoft Visual Programming Language : VPL), command line tools allow to deal with Visual Studio projects (VS Express version is enough) in C#, C++ or VB.NET), support for script languages such as IronPython and 3D simulation tools.

• Visual Programming Language is a graphical development environment that uses a service and activity catalog.
  • They can interact graphically, a service or an activity is represented by a block that has inputs and outputs that just need to be dragged from the catalog to the diagram.
  • Linking can be done with the mouse, it allows you to define if signals are simultaneous or not, permits you to perform operations on transmitted values...
  • VPL also allows you to generate the code of new "macro" services from diagrams created by users.
  • It is possible in VPL to easily customize services for different hardware elements.

• MRDS 3D simulation environment allows you to simulate the behavior of robots in a virtual world using NVIDIA PhysX technology (3D engine originally written by Ageia) that includes advanced physics.

• Many examples and tutorials are available for the different tools, which permits a fast understanding of MRDS. Several applications have been added to the suite, such as Maze Simulator, or Soccer Simulation which is developed by Microsoft.

• There are 3 small simulation environments in the standard and academic edition of MRDS, these environments are limited versions of the larger generic simulation environments developed by SimplySim
  • Apartment (also available in the express edition)
  • Outdoor
  • Urban

Notable applications

• Princeton University's DARPA Urban Grand Challenge autonomous car entry was programmed entirely with MRDS.^[1]
• MySpace uses MRDS for a non-robotic application in the back end of their site.^[2]
• Indiana University uses MRDS in a non-robotic application to coordinate a high-performance computing network.^[2]
• In 2008 Microsoft launched a simulated robotics competition named RoboChamps using MRDS, four challenges were available : maze, sumo, urban, and mars rover. the simulated environment and robots used by the competition were created by SimplySim and the competition was sponsored by KIA Motors

• The 2009 robotics and algorithm section of the Imagine Cup software competition uses MRDS visual simulation environment. The challenges of this competition were also developed by SimplySim and are improved versions of the RoboChamps challenges.

Versions and Licensing

• Robotics Studio 1.0 (Commercial and Non-Commercial Use Licenses) -- Release Date: December 18, 2006
• Robotics Studio 1.5 (Commercial and Non-Commercial Use Licenses) -- Release Date: May 2007
• Robotics Studio 1.5 'Refresh' (Commercial and Non-Commercial Use Licenses) -- Release Date: December 13, 2007
• Robotics Developer Studio 2008 Standard Edition (Commercial Use), Academic Edition (Academic use) and Express Edition^{[Note 1]} (Commercial and Non-Commercial Use) -- Release Date: November 18, 2008
• Updated to 2008 R2 -- Release Date: June 17, 2009

1. ^ The Express Edition does not have edit mode in the simulation, lacks the floor plan editor, it is limited to 64 entities, and there is no support for COLLADA models.

Supported robots

An iRobot Create robot inside Microsoft Robotic Studio's Visual Simulation Environment

• Aldebaran Robotics Nao Official WebSite
• CoroWare CoroBot Official Website
• Lego Mindstorms NXT Official Website
• Lego Mindstorms RCX (Support dropped in latest version)
• iRobot Create
• KUKA Robotics Educational Framework
• Parallax Boe-Bot
• Robosoft's robots Official WebSite
• Parallax Scribbler. Through IPRE.
• fischertechnik FT16
• Kondo KHR-1
• Segway RMP Official WebSite by: Ben Axelrod
• Surveyor SRV-1
• RoboticsConnection Traxster. Link
• RoombaDevTools by RoboDynamics
• uBot-5 from the Laboratory For Perceptual Robotics at University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Vex Robotics Design System available at CodePlex
• WowWee RoboSapien, via the USB-UIRT device
• ZMP INC. e-nuvo WALK Official Website