Reference Platform

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Reference Platform

The RDS Reference Platform Design provides a specification that hardware vendors or individual enthusiasts can follow to create robots that can easily work with RDS. The basic design includes:

  • Two-wheeled Differential Drive
  • Kinect Sensor
  • Proximity Sensors (for obstacle avoidance)
  • On-board Laptop Computer
  • Wireless Xbox Controller (for remote control)

The design uses the acronym MARK: Mobile Autonomous Robot using Kinect. The key features of the robot are Mobility, Autonomy, Interactivity and Expandability.

Rather than being a fixed design, the Reference Platform specifies the basic features and leaves it up to the designer to choose how to implement these features. MARK robots are intended to be expandable.

A MARK robot might look like the following early prototype (without the laptop which sits on the top deck which is transparent in this example):

Hh418576.TopDownView-Small(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg

By writing services that implement various contracts such as the Generic Differential Drive, Analog Sensor Array, etc. the builder of a MARK robot can take advantage of the higher-level services included in RDS.

Over time it is expected that multiple vendors will provide Reference Platform robots. These vendors will also supply build instructions or sell the robots fully assembled.

A simulated version of the Reference Platform is included in RDS.

Hh418576.ReferencePlatform(en-us,MSDN.10).png

See the RDS Reference Platform Design document for more information.

 

 

 

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