Urbi

This article is about the software platform. For the Mexico-based construction company, see Urbi.
Urbi
Developer(s) Gostai / Aldebaran
Initial release 2003 (2003)
Stable release 2.7.4 / November 17, 2011 (2011-11-17)
Development status Active
Written in urbiscript, C++
Operating system Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Type Robotics suite, OS, library
License BSD licenses[1]
Website github repository

Urbi is an open source cross-platform software platform in C++ used to develop applications for robotics and complex systems.[2] Urbi is based on the UObject distributed C++ component architecture. It also includes the urbiscript orchestration language which is a parallel and event-driven script language. UObject components can be plugged into urbiscript and appear as native objects that can be scripted to specify their interactions and data exchanges. UObjects can be linked to the urbiscript interpreter, or executed as autonomous processes in "remote" mode. Urbi is interoperable with Willow Garage's ROS.[1]

The urbiscript Language

Main article: urbiscript

The urbiscript language has been developed since 2003 by Jean-Christophe Baillie in the Cognitive Robotics Lab of ENSTA, Paris. It is now actively and further developed in the industry through the Gostai company founded in 2006.

The urbiscript language can be best described as an orchestration script language: like Lua in video games, urbiscript can be used to glue together C++ components into a functional behavior, the CPU-intensive algorithmic part being left to C++ and the behavior scripting part being left to the script language which is more flexible, easy to maintain and allows dynamic interaction during program execution. As an orchestration language, urbiscript also brings some useful abstractions to the programmer by having parallelism and event-based programming as part of the language semantics. The scripting of parallel behaviors and reactions to events are core requirements of most robotic and complex AI applications, therefore urbiscript (and the whole Urbi platform) is well suited to these applications.

Language attributes

Functions

Examples

The example below shows how to write a ball tracking action/perception loop in urbiscript: headYaw/headPitch are two motor objects, and ball is the ball detection object (x and y range from -1/2 to 1/2):

  whenever (ball.visible)
  {
      headYaw.val   += camera.xfov * ball.x
    &
      headPitch.val += camera.yfov * ball.y
  };

whenever is used to trigger a piece of code in loops as long as the associated condition is true. The "&" sign is used to specify that both commands should start at the same time, thus running in parallel.

Other notable event-driven constructs include at, which triggers the associated code once when the event is triggered:

  at (speech.hear?("hello"))
  {
    voice.say("How are you?") &
    robot.standup();
  }

Every command or group of commands is taggable, which provides a way to stop it later if needed:

  myTag:
    while (true)
      echo("This is a never ending loop"),
  at (button.pressed)
    myTag.stop;

Note in the example above the comma at the end of the command. It will put the preceding command in the background, allowing the flow execution to carry on, in particular the next 'at' command to be executed.

UObject component architecture

The UObject component architecture allows developers to interface any Java/C++ object within Urbi, making selected methods and attributes visible in urbiscript, while in fact being compiled code. Special notifiers can be set on any of the object's attributes to notify the C++ side of any change on these attributes on the urbiscript/Urbi side.

UObject uses C++ templates to transparently map any requested method to an interface machinery that takes care of the type checking.

A UObject can be used in plugged mode if it is directly linked to Urbi at compile time or with dynamic loading. In that case, the C++ object shares the Urbi memory directly, resulting in efficient integration. This is typically used for time critical components like motor or sensor drivers. The same UObject can also be used without modifications as a remote component. In that case, it will become an autonomous program to be executed with the IP address of the Urbi server as a parameter. In both cases, the object will transparently appear in urbiscript as a native urbiscript object.

Components for Robotics: speech, face/object detection, SLAM

Several UObject components useful for robotics are available on the Urbiforge.org community website of Urbi:

Some of these components are Free Software (GPL) components developed by the community.

Ecosystem

Robotics simulators compatible with Urbi

"Urbi-fied" robots

Released:

Announced:

Development environments

Urbi comes with Gostai Studio[11] that integrates a behavior editor to graphically create finite state machines whose states are simple urbiscript programs, and GUI builder to design interfaces with drag and drop support. Gostai Studio is cross-platform and generates freely usable urbiscript code as an output. Choregraphe is a platform for NAO using the Python and urbiscript languages.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Urbi, the open source operating system for robots". Retrieved 2012-10-27.
  2. ↑ Baillie, Jean-Christophe. "Urbi: a new parallel & event-driven script language for robotics, games and more". YouTube. Retrieved 6 Oct 2011.
  3. ↑ Baillie, Jean-Christophe; Demaille, Akim; Nottale, Matthieu; Hocquet, Quentin; Tardieu, Samuel (2008). "The Urbi Universal Platform for Robotics" (PDF). Retrieved 6 October 2011.
  4. ↑ Baillie, Jean-Christophe; Demaille, Akim; Nottale, Matthieu; Hocquet, Quentin (2010). "Tag: Job Control in urbiscript" (PDF). Retrieved 6 October 2011.
  5. ↑ Urbi for Webots
  6. ↑ "Webots Support". Retrieved 2012-01-25.
  7. ↑ "Gostai Open Jazz Support". Retrieved 2012-01-25.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ "Nao Support". Retrieved 2012-01-25.
  10. ↑ "Bioloid Support". Retrieved 2012-01-25.
  11. ↑ http://www.gostai.com/products/studio/ Gostai Studio programming suite

External links

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