Willow Garage?s open-source Robot Operating System continues its march toward becoming industrial robotics? platform of choice. As we reported in January, CoroWare announced a new upgrade offer for existing CoroBot Classic and CoroBot Explorer unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) customers. These upgrades will [provide]? a new class of CoroBot applications based on the Robotic Operating System from Willow Garage.”

Now comes word that Willow Garage is collaborating with another major mobile platform provider: Adept Technology ?to deliver solutions for manufacturing and industrial applications harnessing the strength of Willow Garage’s ROS software framework with Adept’s proven industrial robotic solutions.? The news item on Robotics Online revealed that ?the two Silicon Valley-based companies along with Texas-based Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are contributing to the ROS-Industrial project to combine the reliability of proven industrial robotics with the inherent flexibility of open source software.?