August archive

Added Fawkes screenshots

The screenshots show the most important GUI applications (though not all, will add more over time).

The config, plugin and netlog GUIs are the basic tools to configure a Fawkes instance on a robot, load and unload plugins, or view log messages produced by plugins respectively. All GUI applications make use of Zeroconf service discovery (using Avahi). It allows to conveniently present a list of robots on the local network and connect by a simple double click.

The SkillGUI is a tool to interact with the skill execution runtime. Skills are basic behaviors the robot can execute, like "goto to place x" or "grasp the cup". They are modeled using state machines which are shown for easy monitoring in real-time. The FireStation application uses the vision system for color training and visualization.

The webview plugin provides a web interface for Fawkes. It can be used to see the recent log messages, inspect the blackboard and manage the plugins.

The LaserGUI finally shows the raw data that the laser range finder gathered. In this case this is a rotating laser range finder (cf. RoboCup@Home wiki about Laser Range Finders). It produces a 15 scans per second with a resolution down to 0.5° between two consecutive beams. The beams can be visualized either by showing beams, or just the end points of the beams, or the hull. Each is useful for checking different problems or testing different applications. There is also a mode to visualize results of Masrur's leg tracker. Maybe we can put up a screenshot of this later.

Posted by Tim Niemueller on August 18, 2009 01:28

Fawkes initial public release

After RoboCup 2006, when the AllemaniACs of the Knowledge-Based Systems Group started to work on a new mid-size soccer robot, the decision was made to write a new software system. After almost three years it has evolved into a versatile robot software framework used on different platforms, real robots and in simulation.

Today we release the software as Open Source Software to the general public, in the hope that it will be useful to others and to build a community to create a joined effort to further improve and expand Fawkes. The now released software version 0.3 is a particular milestone for the project and its direction. It's an experimental base that we will now continue to improve making it easier to use Fawkes and to extend it by more robotics applications and tools. You are welcome to join the team!

Posted by Tim Niemueller on August 13, 2009 15:51