Glossary
Terms and abbreviations used on this site, each with a link to the page that explains it. On every page, hovering an abbreviation, such as URDF, shows its meaning; this page lists them all, which also helps on a phone, where hovering isn't possible.
- BOM, bill of materials
- The list of all parts needed to build a robot, with quantities and where to buy them. More
- catkin
- The build system of ROS 1, which builds the packages in a workspace such as ~/catkin_ws. More
- CI, continuous integration
- Building and testing the code automatically on every push and pull request. More
- DC, direct current
- Current that flows in one direction, as from a battery; a DC motor's speed follows its voltage. More
- dev container
- A Docker container with ROS and all tools installed, which VS Code or the Dev Container CLI opens as the development environment. More
- DOF, degrees of freedom
- The number of independent ways something can move; a pose on the ground has three, x, y and the heading. More
- EKF, extended Kalman filter
- A Kalman filter for nonlinear systems, which linearizes the motion and measurement models around the current estimate. More
- Gazebo
- The robot simulator that DiffBot and Remo use; with ROS Noetic, it's Gazebo Classic 11. More
- GPIO, general-purpose input/output
- Pins of a single-board computer or microcontroller that software can read or switch. More
- I2C, Inter-Integrated Circuit
- A two-wire bus, with a data line (SDA) and a clock line (SCL), that connects sensors and drivers to a computer. More
- IMU, inertial measurement unit
- A sensor that measures acceleration and rotation rate, and often the magnetic field, to estimate orientation. More
- LiDAR, light detection and ranging
- A sensor that measures distances with laser light; a 2D laser scanner turns to measure them all around. More
- LTS, long-term support
- A release that gets updates for several years, such as Ubuntu 20.04 or ROS Noetic. More
- MCU, microcontroller unit
- A small computer on one chip that runs one program in real time, such as the Teensy that controls the motors. More
- odometry
- The robot's pose estimated from its own motion, for example by counting wheel turns. More
- PID, proportional-integral-derivative
- A controller whose output is a weighted sum of the error, its integral and its derivative. More
- PWM, pulse-width modulation
- Switching a signal on and off quickly, so the share of on-time sets, for example, a motor's average voltage. More
- REP, ROS Enhancement Proposal
- A document that defines a ROS convention, such as REP 103 for units and coordinate frames. More
- RGB-D, color and depth
- A camera that gives a depth for each pixel in addition to its color. More
- ros_control
- The ROS framework that connects controllers, such as the diff drive controller, to a robot's hardware or its simulation. More
- rosserial
- A protocol and ROS packages that let a microcontroller publish and subscribe to ROS topics over a serial connection. More
- RViz
- The ROS visualization tool, which shows the robot model, its sensor data, maps and plans in 3D. More
- SBC, single-board computer
- A complete computer on one board that runs Linux and ROS, such as the Raspberry Pi or the Jetson Nano. More
- SLAM, simultaneous localization and mapping
- Building a map of an unknown environment while estimating the robot's pose in it. More
- SPI, Serial Peripheral Interface
- A fast serial bus with separate lines for data in, data out, clock and chip select. More
- STL, stereolithography
- A 3D file format that describes a surface as triangles, used for 3D printing and robot meshes. More
- UART, universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter
- A serial interface with a transmit and a receive line and no clock, such as the serial port of a microcontroller. More
- URDF, Unified Robot Description Format
- The XML format that describes a robot's links, joints, sensors and their geometry for ROS. More
- WSL, Windows Subsystem for Linux
- Runs a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu inside Windows. More
The definitions come from includes/glossary.yml, the same file as the tooltips. To add a term, add it there.
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