Reading Room
blog, news, case studies
Restoring Mobile Manipulation: Panthera-HT 6-DOF Arm for Leo Rover
Following the discontinuation of previous compatible robotic arms, mobile manipulation remained a missing capability in the Leo Rover ecosystem. Today,…
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How to Add RTK GPS to a Small Mobile Robot: A Complete ROS 2 Setup
TL;DR: To add RTK GNSS to a mobile robot in ROS 2, you need a multi-band GNSS receiver (for example…
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LiDAR SLAM in Open Terrain: Benchmarking Three SLAM Algorithms on One Rover
TL;DR: This article describes a reproducible approach to comparing slam_toolbox, LIO-SAM, and RTAB-Map on a single Leo Rover platform in…
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The Unwritten Rules of Robotics Competitions: What Teams Wish They Knew Before Entering
TL;DR: Winning robotics competitions rarely comes down to the most advanced algorithm or the most expensive hardware. Teams that consistently…
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How to Build and Grow a ROS Community at Your University?
TL;DR: Building a ROS university community starts with a small core team, a shared hardware platform, and a recurring workshop…
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What Do Robotics Engineers Actually Do? A Day in the Life at Fictionlab
TL;DR: A typical day for a robotics engineer at Fictionlab mixes ROS 2 development, CAD revisions, soldering, outdoor field tests,…
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From PhD Research to Real Deployment: How Academic Robotics Projects Scale Up
TL;DR: Scaling academic robotics from a PhD prototype to a deployable product is mostly about closing the gap between TRL…
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How to Write a Robotics Research Grant That Actually Gets Approved
TL;DR: A successful robotics research grant proposal connects a specific scientific question to a defensible methodology, a justified hardware stack,…
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Open Source in Robotics: Why It’s Not Just a Philosophy, It’s a Business Model
TL;DR: Open source robotics is a working business model, not a charity. Companies like Fictionlab build commercial mobile robot platforms…
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What to Expect at ICRA, ROSCon, and Other Key Robotics Conferences: A First-Timer’s Guide
TL;DR: ICRA, IROS, ROSCon, RSS, and Humanoids are among the core robotics conferences worth attending if you build mobile robots,…
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How to Set Up a Mobile Robotics Lab from Scratch: Equipment, Budget, and Mistakes to Avoid
TL;DR: A functional mobile robotics lab setup needs four pillars: a reliable UGV platform, a ROS 2 development workstation, a…
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From Simulation to Field: How to Validate Your ROS 2 Stack Before Going Outdoors
TL;DR: Moving a ROS 2 simulation to a real robot fails most often because of unmodeled physics, sensor noise, and…
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