Astrobee is a free-flying robot that is designed to operate as a payload inside the International Space Station (ISS). The Astrobee Robot Software consists of embedded (on-board) software, supporting tools and a simulator. The Astrobee Robot Software operates on Astrobee's three internal single board computers and uses the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) framework as message-passing middleware. The Astrobee Robot Software performs vision-based localization, provides autonomous navigation, docking and perching, manages various sensors and actuators, and supports user interaction via screen-based displays, light signaling, and sound. The Astrobee Robot Software enables Astrobee to be operated in multiple modes: plan-based task execution (command sequencing), teleoperation, or autonomously through execution of hosted code uploaded by project partners (guest science). The software simulator enables Astrobee Robot Software to be evaluated without the need for robot hardware.
This repository contains the libraries and API to support Guest Science application running on the Astrobee High Level Processor (HLP). The HLP runs the Android Nougat Operating System (7.1.1). The Astrobee Robot Software exposes a Java API that can be used either in pure Java land or Android land to interact with robot internal messaging system based on ROS.
A distinct repository, astrobee, contains
the core flight software for Astrobee. Note that astrobee repository is
required to used astrobee_android (it contains all the message definitions).
Also note that the Astrobee Robot Software is in beta stage. This means that some features are missing and some functionalities are incomplete. Please consult RELEASE.md for the current list of features and limitations.
Please see the Guest Science Readme for a description of how guest science should interact with the Astrobee flight software. This documentation also contains examples to help guest science interface with Astrobee.
Please see the Guest Science Resources page for information on guest science capabilities on Astrobee.
Before building the Astrobee Android project, ensure your system meets the following requirements:
- Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) is needed for compatibility with
ros-kinetic-rosjavadependencies.- Ubuntu 16.04 support will soon be phased out as we migrate to Ubuntu 20.04
rosjavahas not yet been released for ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04, soros-kinetic-rosjavaneeds to be built from source. ROS Wiki Source Installation Instructions.- Currently there are dependency conflicts when using
ros-kinetic-rosjavawith ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04.
- Currently there are dependency conflicts when using
- Android Studio: Use version 3.6.3, which is compatible with the project's Gradle 3.3. Download from the Android Studio archive.
- Java JDK: Install Java JDK 8 for compatibility with the project's Gradle version. Download from the Oracle website.
Ensure these tools and dependencies are installed and configured before attempting to build the Astrobee Android project.
Copyright (c) 2017, United States Government, as represented by the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All rights reserved.
The Astrobee platform is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.