The TIAGo robot family is a popular choice for universities, research centres, and industrial applications due to its wide range of capabilities. These include perception, navigation, manipulation, and human-robot interaction. Recently, the TIAGo robot family received new software packages that enhance its capabilities for an even better user experience. The new web user interface software packages available for the TIAGo robot family are the Web-based Animation Interface, and Web-based Visual Programming package, and you can also find a new upgraded version of the Advanced Navigation package. These packages provide users with more options for customization and ease of use. With these updates, users can achieve their desired tasks with greater simplicity and efficiency.
One of the highlights of these new software packages is the development of a web user interface, a tool designed to simplify the configuration of the robot and the user experience. This interface can be accessed via any device (including PCs, tablets, and smartphones), and it allows users to monitor the robot’s state and diagnostics in real-time.
Upgrading the premium Advanced Navigation package
The Advanced Navigation package is an update to the previous package, and it enables users to navigate and build and edit maps with ease. This update provides full compatibility of all the previously available features with the brand new web-based interface of TIAGo. As with the previous version of the package, users can take full advantage of TIAGo’s sensors, including the RGB-D camera. The graphical joystick makes navigation easier, and users can define and interact with points and zones of interest, including building management which allows users to consider more than one floor. Additionally, users can map virtual obstacles and forbidden regions and define preferred paths. And all this can be done, from this moment on, via a web-based interface without the need of any of the TIAGo development tools.
New premium packages available for the TIAGo robot family:
- Web-based Animation Interface
The Web-based Animation Interface is a new package that allows users to create motions and presentations. With this package, users can coordinate robot speech and motions, create custom motions with the arm, head, and torso, and visualize presentations created with a graphical timeline, which provide us with an enhanced HRI experience. Users can also create new motions either through sliders or gravity compensation mode.
- Web-based Visual Programming
The Web-based Visual Programming package is another new package that enables users to program without coding. Users can create and launch programs without any coding experience needed. The block-based drag-and-drop graphical interface is based on behaviour trees, and users can create variables and visualise the whole program. This package offers intuitive control of the robot and is easy to use.
Updated premium packages available for the TIAGo robot family:
- Other premium Software packages
Whole-Body Control is a controller available with the TIAGo robot that solves an optimization problem that consists of a list of tasks ordered in priority. This allows them to avoid self-collisions and perform safe motions. This controller can be combined with the reading of robot add-ons, such as force or torque sensors at the wrist that allows the robot to achieve admittance when combined with cartesian pose tasks for the end-effectors. This can be further used for manipulation purposes to always assure safe planning in the sense that both self-collisions and joint limits are always avoided.
TIAGo the versatile mobile manipulator
The TIAGo robot is one of the most used robots for research in universities and innovation centres all over the world. TIAGo has a modular design and can be configured based on your needs, and customized with its countless expansion possibilities. The arm has a large manipulation workspace that allows it to reach the ground as well as high shelves. The end effector can be a gripper or a humanoid hand and they can be quickly and easily exchanged to make the platform suited to different types of research and use cases. The robot is popular in robotics competitions and has taken part in RoboCup and IROS the Mobile Manipulation Hackathon, amongst others. Some of the research fields TIAGo is used in by universities and EU research projects include Industry 4.0, IoT, benchmarking, and Ambient Assisted Living.
TIAGo resources: getting started with TIAGo robot
For those interested in getting started with the TIAGo robot, there are tutorials available on how to use TIAGo on Wiki ROS, which works in both the Melodic and Noetic ROS distributions. These tutorials include navigation, perception, and manipulation. All the materials used are available in the Github packages on the TIAGo robot, which contains the description, controller configuration of the robot, along with other tools that may be useful for research. Additionally, there are docker containers with a public simulation of the various TIAGo robot options, including TIAGo Base (Differential drive and Omnidirectional), TIAGo, and TIAGo++.
The new software packages available for the TIAGo robot family, the updated Advanced Navigation package, Web-based Animation Interface, and Web-based Visual Programming package, provide users with more options for customization and ease of use. With these updates, users can take full advantage of TIAGo’s capabilities and achieve their desired tasks with greater ease and efficiency.
To find out more about the new premium packages and the latest upgrades available for your TIAGo robot visit the TIAGo web user interface website. Learn more about TIAGo the mobile manipulator and the endless possibilities for your research that the robot provides. To learn more about us, and to ask us any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.