Setting robotics development environment (DevEnv) is not for the faint-hearted. When was the last time you were able to install and run an opensource robotics project successfully without troubleshooting? This brief outlines the remote DevEnv project idea I’d like to explore one day.

Goals

Simplify

1. Setting up robotics DevEnv
   • E.g., ROS project with a simulation that requires GPU
   • E.g., for individual developers or teams
2. Running simulation tests
   • E.g., 100 e2e simulation tests, in parallel

by leveraging remote DevEnv. Why remote DevEnv? Checkout this page.

Expected Outcomes

• Findings from setting up & running existing opensource robotics projects on cloud
• Evaluation of existing remote DevEnv services
• Findings from setting up & running simulation tests on cloud

Background Research

Remote Development Environment

• DevEnv-as-Code
  • Laptop development is dead: why remote development is the future
  • Repeatable, Reproducible, and now Accessible! ROS Development via Dev Containers
• Cloud-based development environment services
  • Codespace/Dev Container
  • DevZero
  • Coder
  • GitPod
  • DevPod

ML Workflow on Cloud

• Implementing Machine Learning Workflows on Nomad

Candidate Robotics Projects

• autoware
• openpilot

Expected Challenges

• Enabling admin features like authentication, workload management, monitoring, …