DeimOS: A ROS-Ready operating system for the e-puck

Abstract

Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of development tools that has become a de facto standard both in the academia and the industry. However, little effort has been devoted to enable ROS in small robots widely used in swarm robotics for education and research, such as the e-puck. We developed DeimOS: a Linux-based ROS-ready operating system for the e-puck robot extended with the Gumstix Overo COM. DeimOS integrates support for ARGoS3—a swarm-dedicated simulator that facilitates the realization of control software for robot swarms. Thanks to DeimOS, e-puck robots can be modernized to conduct educational and research experiments in modern engaging robotics tasks such as robot mapping. DeimOS is a free and open-source software-only solution to extend the lifetime and the capabilities of e-puck robots—a cost effective alternative to existing hardware-based solutions.