Intrinsic, owned by Alphabet – Google’s Parent company, has purchased multiple divisions of Open Robotics, the creator of the popular robotics software packages Gazebo and Robotic Operating System (ROS). This is few months after it completed the acquisition of Vicarious, a robotic software startup.
In particular, Intrinsic is acquiring Open Robotics’ commercial arm, Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), as well as OSRC-SG, the company’s division in Singapore that spearheaded the Open-RMF initiative to facilitate communication between disparate robot fleets and the physical environment (e.g. doors and elevators).
Beyond some new executive hires, Open Robotics co-founder and ex-CEO Brian Gerkey says the deal will have no effect on the non-profit arm of Open Robotics known as Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF).
Gerkey, in a blog post announcing the deal, reassures readers that OSRF’s management of ROS robotics middleware, Gazebo 3D robotics simulator, and Open-RMF will continue without interruption.
After the acquisition is finalised, OSRF will continue to be responsible for the intellectual property, project governance, and expansion of the ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF communities that are based on open source software.
In addition, ROSCon will continue to organise the annual ROSCon event, manage the GitHub groups for each project, administer the websites for each project, and provide assistance for TurtleBot, Open Robotics’ low-cost robot kit produced in collaboration with Clearpath Robotics and ROBOTIS.
Intrinsic said its mission is to democratize access to robotics, as it tries to make programming intelligent robotic solutions as simple as standing up a website or mobile application. The new deal will expand its use and integration of ROS tools, and build the Intrinsic platform.
“As we work together to support and serve developers, we see immense value in creating a software platform that expands access to intelligent robotics in a way that’s compatible, useful, and open, while creating countless opportunities where they didn’t exist before,” says Wendy Tan White, Chief Executive Officer at Intrinsic.
Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) was established in 2012 in Mountain View with the goal of fostering “the development, distribution, and use of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and commercial development.”
It all started at Scott Hassan’s Willow Garage, a robotics incubator and development facility founded by the now-billionaire former Google engineer. There were a few different offshoots created from Willow Garage over time, and OSRF was one of them.
OSRC was created in September of 2016, and together with OSRF they both came under the name Open Robotics. Open Robotics founded OSRC-SG in 2018 and announced partnerships with the government of Singapore to develop healthcare robotics applications.
