I have been working with Carmen http://carmen.sourceforge.net/ for a while now, and I really like the software but I need to make some changes inside the source code.
I am therefore interesting in some students reports/projects there have been working with Carmen, or any documentation of the source code.
I have been reading the documentation on the webpage for Carmen, but with all respect I think the literature there is a bit outdated and insufficient.
ROS is the new hot navigation toolkit for robotics. It has a professional development group and a very active community. The documentation is okay, but it's the best I've seen for robotic operating systems.
There are a lot of student project teams that are using it.
Check it out at www.ros.org
I'll be more specific on why ROS is awesome...
Built in visualizer/simulator rviz - It has a record function which will record all of the messages passed out of nodes, this allows you take in a lot of raw data store it in a "ros bag" and then play it back later when you need to test your AI, but want to sit in your bed.
Built in navigation capabilities,
-all you have to do is write the publishers of data for your sensors. -It has standard messages that you need to fill out so that the stack has enough information.
There is an Extended Kalman Filter which is pretty awesome because I didn't want to write one. Currently implementing it, i'll let you know how that turns out.
It also has built in message levels, by that I mean you can change which severity of print messages are printed during runtime, fairly handy for debugging.
There's a robot monitor node that you can publish the status of your sensors to and it bundles all of that information into a GUI for your viewing pleasure.
There are some basic drivers already written. For example SICK lidars are supported right out of the box.
There is also a built in transform function, to help you move everything to the right coordinate system.
ROS was made to run across multiple computers, but can work on just one.
Data transfer is handled over TCP ports.
I hope that's more helpful.
Hello,
I'm currently working with CARMEN and it would be very interesting to exchange ideas. Feel free to contact me in pablo [at] hevia-koch [dot] cl
i am also working on it and i have some doubts regarding adding a new module... if any suggestions mail me at [email protected]