A.T.O.M Labs

May 7, 2023 by Abhishek Garg

A.T.O.M’s Experience At ROS Developers Meetup

Hey Robo geeks, here is another blog about A.T.O.M’s amazing experiences. On 29th April 2023, A.T.O.M members attended the ROS Developers Meet-up at the R&I park, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi which was hosted by Acceleration Robotics in collaboration with Peer Robotics. The event was attended by over 100 people from various backgrounds and domains, including students, researchers, professionals, and enthusiasts. The meet-up was aimed at bringing together the ROS community in India and fostering knowledge sharing and collaboration among them.

Sounds Cool, Right? But what is a developers meetup?

At the heart of the robotics community lies a profound appreciation for attending robotics events and meet-ups. These gatherings act as catalysts for growth, fostering an environment of learning and collaboration. By participating in such events, individuals and teams like A.T.O.M. Robotics have the unique opportunity to connect with industry experts, gaining insights into the latest advancements in the field. The ROS Developers meet-up at IIT Delhi perfectly embodied this spirit, attracting renowned speakers who brought their expertise to the forefront.

Fig 1: ROS Developers Meet-up venue at the R&I park, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

What happened at the meetup?

The event started with an inaugural address by Professor SK Saha, Project Director of IHFC, in which he told about their vision and the various robotics activities happening at IIT Delhi. Then, following this, Prateek Nagras, CEO of Acceleration Robotics, introduced the audience to ROS 2 and its growing industrial acceptance.

Fig 2: Professor SK Saha, Project Director of IHFC(Top) and Prateek Nagras, CEO of Acceleration Robotics(Bottom)

Fig 3: Alok Kumar, Cofounder and Head of technology at peer Robotics

Alok Kumar, CoFounder and Head of Technology at Peer Robotics, then talked about approaches for developing human-robot interaction with ROS and talked through the construction of an HRI example. He emphasised the hybrid approach of rule-based systems with machine learning techniques in modern systems. Then next, Aditya Mulgundkar, a robotics researcher from IIIT Hyderabad, presented DroneForce, a framework for creating custom controllers for drones using ROS. DroneForce abstracts low-level information for controls engineers, allowing them to build up controllers without relying on Simulink or MATLAB code creation.

The next talk was led by our founders of A.T.O.M. Robotics, Jasmeet Singh and Naman Malik, who are currently working as robotics engineers at Acceleration Robotics.

Fig 4: Jasmeet Singh and Naman Malik, Founders A.T.O.M. Robotics

They demonstrated-

their work on creating realistic and complex environments for testing and training robotic systems using satellite imagery to construct environmental artefacts for sensors in the Ignition Gazebo
how to add environmental artefacts such as rain, fog, sun, and lens flare effects that can affect the performance and perception of the sensors.
benefits and challenges of using these effects and how they can help improve the robustness and accuracy of the robotic systems.

Their work will be integrated into the future edition of Ignition Gazebo, which will allow users to create custom environments and scenarios with more ease and flexibility.

And, finally, Our admin, Arjun K. Haridas, represented A.T.O.M. Robotics on stage.

Arjun gave a brief introduction to our society to the audience by sharing our journey, from how we began the society by participating in various hackathons and events to successfully establishing and building a strong robotics community that fosters a culture of innovation and embraces technological progress.

Our Thoughts on this event :

The event was a grand success and it was a great opportunity for us to meet industry professionals, learn from their experiences, and network at these gatherings which increases our community reach to a great extent. We look forward to attending more such events in future and even organising such events to spread the culture of technological innovation. Stay tuned to our website and social media handles for more such insightful updates, till then keep learning and exploring the world of robotics with A.T.O.M.