Reading Room
The Fictionlab Blog
Explore a mix of technical guides, industry insights, and stories from inside our Robot house. Whether it’s engineering deep dives, business analysis, or the history behind our rover competitions, this is where we share our knowledge and culture.
How to Properly Calibrate an IMU on a Mobile Robot (And Why Most Teams Skip It)
TL;DR: Proper IMU calibration in ROS 2 means three things: removing static bias from accelerometers and gyroscopes, characterizing noise with…
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Thermal Cameras on Robots: Use Cases, Limitations, and ROS 2 Integration
TL;DR: Thermal cameras on robots let you see heat signatures that visible-light cameras miss: failing PV modules, overheating electrical contacts,…
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How to Process Point Clouds in ROS 2: A Practical Guide for Mobile Robots
TL;DR: Point cloud processing in ROS 2 boils down to four reproducible steps: subscribe to a sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 topic, downsample with…
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What Is a 3D LiDAR and When Should You Use It Instead of 2D?
TL;DR: A 3D LiDAR captures multiple scan layers (often 16 to 128 in mechanical multi-beam models, or a non-repeating 3D…
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RTK GPS on a Field Robot: What It Is, Why You Need It, and How to Set It Up
TL;DR: RTK GNSS (often called RTK GPS, Real-Time Kinematic GPS) is a satellite positioning technique that uses carrier-phase measurements and…
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Intel RealSense D435 vs. OAK-D Lite: Which Depth Camera for Mobile Robotics Research?
TL;DR: The Intel RealSense D435 and the Luxonis OAK-D Lite solve the same problem (RGB-D perception for mobile robots) with…
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Autonomous Docking and Return-to-Base on a Mobile Robot: How It Works
TL;DR: Robot autonomous docking is the closed-loop process by which a mobile robot detects a known charging or service station,…
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How to Build and Use a Custom ROS 2 Launch File for a Field Robot
TL;DR: A ROS 2 launch file starts and configures multiple nodes, parameters, and remappings from a single command. For a…
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Multi-Robot Coordination with ROS 2: Getting Two Rovers to Work Together
TL;DR: A working ROS 2 multi robot setup needs three things done correctly: unique namespaces and TF frame IDs per…
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How to Fuse GNSS and SLAM for Reliable Outdoor Localization
TL;DR: To fuse GNSS and SLAM in ROS 2 for reliable outdoor localization, you run two Extended Kalman Filters from…
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Introducing Leo Rover 1.9 – Releasing in May
Stay tuned – the new release is on its way!
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The best robotics competitions
Let’s take a look at the most interesting events in which talented and promising roboticists and engineers can compete.
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