Robot Operating System is taking over the world soon

Robot Operating System (ROS) is most ubiquitous platforms for robotics as it is an open-source project. It is a collection of software tools and libraries used by robot programmers for developing applications. ROS is not an operating system but uses operating system’s user interface, file system, process management system, and programming utilities. The most widely used operating system for ROS is Linux, followed by Java or MacOS. The robot operating system is designed to work with different subsystems and components which probably run different programming languages. Growing developments in order to make robot operating system windows compatible will open up new opportunities for the ROS industry.

Robots engineers earlier lacked a common platform for collaboration and communication which delayed the adoption of robotic butlers and other related developments. The robotic innovation has quickly paced up since last decade with advent of ROS wherein the engineers can build robotic apps and programs. Rising need for handling master coordination nodes, control, process actuator, multiplexing information and feedback data along with multiple controllers will drive the robot operating system market over the forecast timeframe.

Considering statistics of ROS community, about 9 million ROS packages were downloaded from over 70,000 IP addresses in May 2015, depicting about thousands of active users. Considering the developer community, about 1,800 people have contributed to the ROS’ 10 million code lines averaging to 20 commits per day. Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) has suggested in October 2016 that about 10 million ROS applications are being downloaded every month.

Increasing investment in robot development to expand new robotic capabilities will drive the industry competition thereby reducing the costs associated with robots. ROS has attracted numerous startups to invest in the field of robotics. These startups are taking advantage of its open source nature to develop reliable robots for tapping new verticals. In 2015, about US$150 million was invested as VC funding in businesses utilizing ROS. Low level functionality benefits provided by ROS will support the industry growth as it eliminates the need of building software and hardware specifically for every robotic projects.