Center for Robotics Software

Mission

Founded in 2017, the Center for Robotics Software in UHCL’s College of Science and Engineering was conceived during consultation with key members of NASA and the local community. The center leverages the technical infrastructure that exists between NASA, academia and industry to identify and solve challenging automation and robotics problems. The emphasis is on applications of the Robot Operating System to control manufacturing, mobile and flying robots.

The Center for Robotics Software provides education, research and development and services in Robot Operating Systems for the greater Houston area. We achieve this by delivering the following:     

• Hands-on experience for the local robotics community;
• Training sessions for NASA, private businesses and other institutions to fortify and support increasingly complex software capabilities for robotics projects;
• Education that creates skilled graduates who can then develop leading research, capabilities and products for the ROS community; and
• Opportunities for government grants 

What is a Robot Operating System?

Robot Operating System software has revolutionized development of robotics software and applications around the world. Developed at Stanford and released to the public in 2007, ROS is comprised of software packages for the control, vision and navigation of robots. Since ROS is open source, the use is not restricted, which means software packages can be modified to meet a variety of specific applications. It also means that, if you’re looking to build a robot and a ROS package already exists, you don’t need to write the software yourself.