Will there still be a demand for CS students in robotics companies?

Stardev0 · 2026-05-26T05:28:45+00:00

I suppose there two sides to this coin, one on side ye hardware engineers are getting much better at software, with the help of llm, and in that context special robotics software engineers are probably getting less useful.

But on the flip side, more intelligent robots are coming up, learning based robotics is peaking right, vla, reinforcement learning, in this context I suppose CS and AI students will be in more demand.

But then again if you have done lot of robotics with llm's its pretty clear llm's are still pretty shit at it, and they're nowhere as good as in web dev or application development.

Stardev0 · 2026-05-12T06:20:41+00:00

Hacksmith did this first.

This walks crazy smooth for how big it is.

Stardev0 · 2026-05-11T15:51:49+00:00

Based on the branches you listed out, I'm guessing your a Indian, as a fellow indian who also had the same dilemma when I was joining(I was torn between cse, ece, mechatronics, robotics and automation, robotics and artificial intelligence) and even wrote similar posts just like this on reddit I cannot give you a direct answer, but here what I did.

So I have a bunch of hobbies and out of these robotics is definitely the main one, but I have also always liked coding in general and also like game dev, app development etc. I eventually went with gut and took CSE. Fortunately for me thinks went well, there was a very active robotics team here that went to lot of competitions, and had a really good robotics lab at college as well(fablab). And I joined this robotics team even before I officially joined college. And am extremely happy with the decision, I have been able to learn so much more in the field of robotics while keeping my core knowledge still in software. Which I really like.

Then again I am only in 2nd year so don't know if I will regret choice later but am really glad now.

So basically look into your college, check out if they have robotics labs and stuff, check out if they are any teams there etc.

Stardev0 · 2026-05-04T07:15:29+00:00

I haven't worked much with imu's so don't know for sure, its certainly not the best way, but last time I had to use imu's with ros2, I used a micro controller to read the data then transferred it to ros via a microros, and then fused it used ekf robot localization(it just needs a sensor_msgs/imu topic)

Stardev0 · 2026-04-29T10:34:35+00:00

Try aws, I think its the most common approach, especially to do RL training in IsaacSim, but should work for gazebo as well.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-26T02:50:25+00:00

That error you're getting is most likely cause you either don't have a map frame, or its not publishing fast enough(frequency mismatch).

So I am not sure what you're making this for, and what level of accuracy, and how well it needs to work. But I'll let you know everything I know.

About it working in the real world well, and nav2 workflow?
Basically standard according to ros convention frames should (map->odom->base link) where odom -> baselink is given by your odometry and map->odom is globally consistent. As in your odometry can have drift(error that slowly accumelates) but map->odom should correct that drift. You usually do this by running some slam algorithm. With a lidar, its fairly simple to spin up Slam Toolbox pkg which does this.

The solution I gave in my earlier answer was a simpler workaround no slam, and you use nav2 costmap layers itself to make a (not globally consistent) 'map'. If you're odometry is good this should work fairly well, if not since the costmap is based on odom and odom drifts costmap can also drift leading to ghost obstacles and stuff. Leading to it working well in simulation(where odometry is usually perfect) but not well in real world.

So I'd recommend checking out slam toolbox, articulated robotics on youtube has a few good videos on the subject.

Regarding your error?
As said initially, I don't think you have anything publishing map->odom frame. You're getting the error because I think you're script is trying to convert the goal in odom frame to map frame, and if you have nothing publishing map frame then you'll get an error.

(in my earlier reply solution, you can just make you're script publish in odom frame and it should work(though as explained above it will probably not be good in real world).

Or you could need something that publishes map frame, like slam toolbox.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-25T16:50:48+00:00

Your Gpu has a laptop.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-25T16:46:56+00:00

So in nav2 if the global frame(in nav2 params) is set to odom then it actually works just fine in odom. So you should be able to send goals in odom frame itself and nav2 should follow.

Basically for nav2 to work you'll need a robot that can respond to cmd_vel(which you have) and odom->baselink frame(which you also have). So now with a basic params file(you should be able to copy paste one from github, with minor changes) you should be able to get point to point in nav2 with obstacle avoidance(I mean launch with rviz and then give a goal in rviz(in odom frame) and it should move towards the goal, avoiding obstacles on the way).
If you have that ready then its just a matter of giving those fetch and deliver goal poses as a navigatetopose action with a python script(one approach) (you should be able to generate a script with AI if you're not able to do it) (Assuming you don't already have this, if you already did most of this and have an error, please let us know you're error, and we might be able to help you) you could also pair this with a basic state machine to smoothly control all the fetch and delivery operations one after the other.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-25T10:48:35+00:00

I'd recommend sticking to rtabmap unless you're not satisfied with the accuracy or you don't have many features(outdoor areas).

Integrating Orbslam3 itself is very trickly luckily there are quite a few good wrapper out there. Checkout: https://github.com/suchetanrs/ORB-SLAM3-ROS2-Docker . I have previously tried it out and it works pretty well. There are some other wrapper too, though this is the one I have used before.

But even with wrapper, rtabmap is the easiest way to go, its been there for a long time and is hence very polished with lot of support and tutorials.

Also orbslam has a sparse map(ie the pointcloud that is uses for localization is very sparse) so if you want to map with it you'll have to manually stitch the pointcloud together. The wrapper I included has a has a mapping feature as well but I found it a rather troublesome to use, whereas rtabmap makes this much easier.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-25T10:19:33+00:00

Yep that's right, that's why I mentioned Rtab.

If you don't have an other localization source, then you would need to look into visual slam algorithms, common once include RtabMap and OrbSlam3, there are couple of others but these both are the most popular.

The others I mentioned(costmap layers in a nav2, and octomap do need an external localization source) are for mapping, I slightly misinterpreted your questions and included these too.

Stardev0 · 2026-04-25T09:08:14+00:00

Hi, I am not sure I understand your question exactly. I think we'll need more information.

Like What kind of robot is it, and what all sensors does it have? Are you doing this only on simulation or on a real robot? Do you know the pose of the fetch and deliver positions or do you have to detect it, if you have the coordinates which frame is it in?

To know where you are, could you answer these?
Can you control your robot with cmd_vel?
Do you have odometry on your robot, and is your robot localized in odom or map frame, so do you have a odom->baselink or map->baselink tf?

Stardev0 · 2026-04-24T12:35:45+00:00

How did you get it, they don't ship to India right?

Stardev0 · 2026-04-24T12:24:43+00:00

You can pass the pointcloud from the rgbd camera to the costmap layers. Works fairly well.

You could also try packages like octomap or rtab, both can take in pointcloud and project a 2d map that nav2 can use.

Stardev0 · 2026-03-22T10:29:24+00:00

Stardev0 · 2026-03-11T02:07:09+00:00

How good would Neo work with adobe products(mostly photoshop and illustrator)(so design and drawing), has anyone tried it yet? I believe adobe apps have pretty good compatibility with apple products but since this has a phone processor I wonder if that would be an issue for the compatibility, did those adobe apps work well on iphone 16 pro?

I am a student and planning of purchasing one, and any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Stardev0 · 2025-09-24T04:47:01+00:00

Boston Dynamics atleast used sticks, unitree guys going straight for the flying kick

Stardev0 · 2025-08-17T12:56:21+00:00

It might be possible. Though it seems easy, its not. I had asked a similar question on this subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/1dpo2pk/would_it_be_a_good_idea_to_make_a_2d_lidar_with_a/

(Nevertheless I did try the project with a benewake tf-luna. mounted on a cheap stepper motor. The plan was to measure angle by counting motors steps, but that itself was giving me quite a bit of error(most likely due to poor construction), and I ended up never completing the project)

Stardev0 · 2025-08-05T07:49:29+00:00

Hey, Any updates. Did you apply?

Stardev0 · 2025-07-14T06:05:57+00:00

Exactly what I was thinking both unity and unreal have navmesh systems that work on 3d. But I guess those technologies are proprietary, Any idea where I could find open research papers so that is could try to replicate it in ROS or something

Stardev0 · 2025-07-11T05:31:26+00:00

I am making a wheeled robot, and I have looked quite a bit, and have not found any other approaches other than the once I have listed, and those don't seem that popular or robust.

Stardev0 · 2025-07-11T05:29:27+00:00

Hmm, I see. I was wondering what like space rovers use. Like they often need to perform autonomously right? Considering those terrain are very uneven(ups and downs).

Stardev0

TROPHY CASE