Google Opens Up Robotics Platform to Developers

Google's Intrinsic has announced that it is open-sourcing foundational components of its robotics platform, aiming to simplify the development and deployment of AI-enabled automation in industries.

The company is releasing software under an Apache 2.0 license, providing robot control, motion, and grasp planning capabilities, as well as machine vision and simulation services. This move is intended to give robotics developers reusable building blocks rather than requiring them to develop basic robot infrastructure for each application.

Specifically, the open-sourced software includes ROS-compatible components such as Intrinsic Control, which provides a hardware-agnostic real-time control framework that can adjust robot behavior during a trajectory based on sensor feedback. Other capabilities include automated motion planning and grasp planning that adapts to the position and orientation of parts.

The company recently tested some of these capabilities in its AI for Industry Challenge, where two teams achieved a 100% success rate in automating the insertion of flexible cables into corresponding ports using several software building blocks combined with AI. Intrinsic is also releasing an Open Machine Tending Solution as a reference application for the platform.