Evolution Robotics was one of the first companies to introduce a commercial implementation of a generic software robotic platform. 

Their product, called ERSP combines a cross-platform runtime environment, a graphical drag-n-drop development environment, a visual object recognition system (ViRP) and a vision-based localization and mapping (vSLAM) system. The computer vision system and the SLAM system are based on SIFT algorithm invented by David Lowe.

The recent innovation from Evolution Robotics is called NorthStar. This robot localization system is based on an infrared beacon technology.

Architecture of ERSP 3.1 software

The platform comes with a graphical toolkit that can be used for building programs based on a number of reusable software building blocks. The building blocks -- called behaviors -- are activated/deactivated in run time by a higher-level program called a task. ERSP runs on both Windows and Linux.

ViRP software

The recent innovation from Evolution Robotics is called NorthStar. This robot localization system is based on an infrared beacon technology. 

The platform comes with a graphical toolkit that can be used for building programs based on a number of reusable software building blocks. The building blocks -- called behaviors -- are activated/deactivated in run time by a higher-level program called a task. ERSP runs on both Windows and Linux.

A screenshot of Evolution Robotics's graphical programming environment

Besides the graphical toolkit, ERSP supports development of programs in Python scripting language.

A screenshot of Evolution Robotics's Robot Control Center, an OCU program

A program called Robot Control Center allows defining missions/tasks for the ER1 personal robot as sequences of IF-THEN statements. Besides that, the application works as an operator control unit (OCU) that allows controlling an ER1 robot remotely. 

ERSP does not come with a simulation environment, and does not support distributed services architecture. Although ERSP is a mature system, it does not seem to be an actively developed product, as the company has not made new releases in a while. 

Evolution Robotics owns a patent on an invention called hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for a robot (US Patent 7302312) which "permits robot control software to be written in a robot-independent manner." As most software products described in this article have some sort of HAL, the vendors should be looking for an appropriate prior art.

By Michael Somby ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Cet e-mail est protégé contre les robots collecteurs de mails, votre navigateur doit accepter le Javascript pour le voir )