IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2017 - 4

from the editor's Desk

The Impact of Hardware
and Open-Source Initiatives on Robotics
By Bram Vanderborght

ardware is hard. It requires
multidisciplinary teams of
mechanical, electrical, and
materials engineers, designers,
and so on. Every new item needs to be
manufactured, distributed, and maintained. Bugs cannot be solved with an
app update; instead, the product must
be recalled, redesigned, remanufactured, and redeployed. On the other
hand, hardware has never been so easy.
Novel manufacturing tools and services
like three-dimensional (3-D) printing,
laser cutting, electronics, and computing devices have
become widely
available. DigiBugs cannot be
tal fabrication
solved with an app
workshops
update; instead, the (Fablabs) are
very popular.
product must be
Hardware ig recalled, redesigned, nites intense
passion in peoremanufactured,
ple. See the
po p ularity of
and redeployed.
crowdfunding
platforms, under which several robots are offered and
other robotic hardware start-ups are
founded. Traditional companies invest
heavily in hardware.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2016.2645443
Date of publication: 29 March 2017

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

The open-source movement has had a huge impact
on the information technology landscape. Virtual
communities produce software that is valuable for both
developers and the public, with
interest from organizations of all
sizes-commercial, noncommercial,
and governmental. In areas such as
microcontroller board production and
3-D printing, open-source initiatives
play an important role. Many of you
have undoubtedly heard of or even
used open-source robotics software
like the Robot Operating System
(ROS), but open-source robotics
hardware is taking longer to catch
on. However, several impressive examples exist, taking advantage of
benefits of those novel rapid prototyping possibilities.
Users can more easily fabricate and
improve on open-source hardware
without requiring large commitments
in terms of cost, time, and domain
expertise. Therefore, I am happy and
thankful that guest editors Aaron
Dollar, Giorgio Metta, Francesco
Mondada, and Alberto Rodriquez
took the initiative for this special issue
on open-source and widely disseminated robot hardware to accelerate the
research and development. These
articles showcase a wide variety of
applications. I hope they will inspire

march 2017

our readers to get involved
and develop better robots.
I also want to express
my gratitude and appreciation for the work of Antonio Franchi [Laboratoire
d'Analyse et d'Architecture des
Systèmes Centre Nationnal de la
Recherche Scientifique (LAAS-CNR),
France] and Yi Guo (Stevens Institute
of Technology, United States), who
served for several years as associate editors (AEs) of IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) and whose
(extended) terms recently ended.
Luckily, they are not gone; Yi will start
as editor of RAM and Antonio became
AE of IEEE Transactions on Robotics, a
lasting engagement in our Society.
From the many candidates available,
we selected Lorenzo Sabattini (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia,
Italy) and Artemiadis Panagiotis (Arizona State University, United States) as
the new AEs. Congratulations on your
new positions, Lorenzo and Artemiadis. They were selected not only
because of their background and experience, but also with consideration for
coverage of different technical areas
and geographical representation. The
board hopes to receive in the future
more industry professionals and
women as publishing candidates.
Enjoy the issue!

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2017