News

ROS Robotics Companies

Source: Github, Septemeber 7, 2022 [1]
A public list of companies that are known to use the Robot Operating System (ROS and ROS 2) or any of its related tools for development, to create products or to offer services. Ordered alphabetically.

SiFive RISC-V CPU cores to power NASA's next spaceflight computer

Source: The Register, Septemeber 6, 2022 [2]
Chip designer SiFive said its RISC-V-compatible CPU cores will power NASA’s just-announced High-Performance Spaceflight Computer (HPSC). SiFive has won a three-year $50 million contract to develop the processor for NASA's new computer system. The HPSC replaces the aging BAE RAD750, introduced more than two decades ago. It will form the backbone for future manned and unmanned missions, including those to the Moon and Mars.

Intel Labs research helps robots learn new objects after deployment

Source: The Robot Report, Septemeber 2, 2022 [3]
Intel has developed a new approach to object learning for robots. Neuromorphic computing allows robots to learn new objects after deployment autonomously.

FTC investigating Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot

Source: The Robot Report, Septemeber 6, 2022 [4]
The FTC is investigating Amazon's acquisition of iRobot for $1.7 billion. Concerns include data privacy and how Amazon might use shopper information to influence buyer behavior. The deal could also be stopped, which would be bad news for both companies.

What’s really behind the adoption of EFPGA?

Source: Semiconductor Engineering, Septemeber 1, 2022 [5]
System companies are taking a more proactive role in co-designing their hardware and software roadmaps, so it’s no surprise that they are also driving the adoption of embedded FPGAs (eFPGA). But why and why has it taken so long?

US bars Nvidia and AMD from selling top GPUs into China

Source: HPCwire, Septemeber 2, 2022 [6]
New export restrictions by U.S. on Nvidia and AMD limit sale of cutting-edge HPC and AI technologies to China, Russia. Nvidia's A100 and forthcoming H100 GPUs banned from export to China and Russia. AMD's Instinct MI250X chip powers the first official ranked exascale supercomputer.

Arm sues Qualcomm over NUVIA’s custom cores

Source: allaboutcircuits, Septemeber 6, 2022 [7]
Arm has accused Qualcomm of breaching its licenses and wants the chipmaker to destroy its NUVIA CPU designs, plus offering up compensation.

Intel puts more weight behind RISC-V with Pathfinder platform

Source: Embedded, Septemeber 1, 2022 [8]
New Intel Pathfinder for RISC-V platform enables developers to create their own products using RISC-V cores and IP from the partner ecosystem, instantiate on FPGA and simulator platforms, and run operating systems and tool chains within a unified IDE.

MOV.AI and lanner electronics announce fully integrated platform powered by NVIDIA Isaac ROS to accelerate robotics development

Source: PR Newswire, Septemeber 6, 2022 [9]
MOV.AI and Lanner Electronics announced today the integration of Lanner's Edge AI computing appliance, MOV.AI's Robotics Engine PlatformTM, and the NVIDIA Isaac robotics platform. The joint offering provides robot developers with fully integrated high-performance hardware, hardware-optimized robotics SDKs and a visual IDE.

Project Monterey bears hardware-accelerated fruit for VMware

Source: The Stack, Septemeber 5, 2022 [10]
VMware's Project Monterey is a "material rearchitecture" of its infrastructure software for its VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). The project drew in a host of hardware partners, as the virtualisation heavyweight looked to respond to the way in which cloud companies were using programmable hardware.

What is a QPU?

Source: NVIDIA Blog, July 27, 2022 [11]
A QPU, aka a quantum processor, is the brain of a quantum computer that uses the behavior of particles like electrons or photons to make certain kinds of calculations much faster than processors in today’s computers.

Papers

Shared vector register of RISC-V for the future hardware acceleration

Source: carrv.github, June 22, 2022 [12]
In this study, we present a vector register sharing mechanism that directly shares vector registers inside the processor with the acceleration circuitry. Because this mechanism can share
the value of a vector register at a given time, high-speed communication is expected, particularly in SoC FPGAs. To validate this mechanism, this study designs and implements a processor with vector registers to obtain a preliminary estimation.

Quantum AI simulator using a hybrid CPU–FPGA approach

Source: arXiv.org, June 20, 2022 [13]
The quantum kernel method is one of the most important methods in quantum machine learning. We show that our hybrid CPU–FPGA quantum kernel simulator is orders of magnitude faster than a conventional quantum computing simulator. Our results have implications for developing quantum-inspired algorithms and designing quantum kernels.

Low-latency mini-batch GNN inference on CPU-FPGA heterogeneous platform

Source: arXiv.org, June 17, 2022 [14]
We map Decoupled GNNs onto CPU-FPGA heterogeneous platforms to achieve low-latency mini-batch inference. We design a novel GNN hardware accelerator with an adaptive datapath denoted Adaptive Computation Kernel (ACK). A fast design space exploration algorithm generates a single accelerator for multiple target models.

Previous Hardware Acceleration in Robotics Newsletters

Past ROS 2 Hardware Acceleration Working Group meetings

  1. https://github.com/vmayoral/ros-robotics-companies ↩︎

  2. Mann, T. (2022, September 6). NASA spaceflight computer to use SiFive RISC-V CPU cores. The Register: Enterprise Technology News and Analysis. https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/06/nasas_spaceflight_computer_risc_v/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=article ↩︎

  3. Wessling, B. (2022, September 2). Intel labs research helps robots learn new objects after deployment. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/intel-labs-research-helps-robots-learn-new-objects-after-deployment/ ↩︎

  4. Oitzman, M. (2022, September 6). FTC investigating Amazon's acquisition of iRobot. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/ftc-investigating-amazon-acquisition-of-irobot/ ↩︎

  5. Jaros, A. (2022, September 1). What's really behind the adoption of eFPGA? Semiconductor Engineering. https://semiengineering.com/whats-really-behind-the-adoption-of-efpga/ ↩︎

  6. Trader, T. (2022, September 2). US bars Nvidia and AMD from selling top GPUs into China. HPCwire. https://www.hpcwire.com/2022/09/01/us-bars-nvidia-and-amd-from-selling-top-gpus-into-china/ ↩︎

  7. Dubois, C. (2022, September 6). Arm sues Qualcomm over NUVIA’s custom cores. allaboutcircuits. https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/arm-sues-qualcomm-over-nuvias-custom-cores/ ↩︎

  8. Dahad, N. (2022, September 1). Intel puts weight behind RISC-V with pathfinder: Embedded.com. Embedded.com. https://www.embedded.com/intel-puts-more-weight-behind-risc-v-with-pathfinder-platform-and-ecosystem/ ↩︎

  9. Electronics, L. (2022, September 6). MOV.AI and lanner electronics announce fully integrated platform powered by NVIDIA Isaac ROS to accelerate robotics development and improve operational efficiency in industrial environments. PR Newswire: press release distribution, targeting, monitoring and marketing. https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/movai-and-lanner-electronics-announce-fully-integrated-platform-powered-by-nvidia-isaac-ros-to-accelerate-robotics-development-and-improve-operational-efficiency-in-industrial-environments-301617106.html ↩︎

  10. The Stack. (2022, September 5). VMware's project Monterey bears hardware accelerated fruit. https://thestack.technology/vmwares-project-monterey-bears-hardware-accelerated-fruit/ ↩︎

  11. Merritt, R. (2022, July 27). What is a QPU? NVIDIA Blog. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/07/29/what-is-a-qpu/?ncid=so-link-785390#cid=hpc06_so-link_en-us ↩︎

  12. Tanaka, T., Higashi, R., Tanaka, H., Miyoshi, T., Osana, Y., Tada, J., Tanaka, K., & Nakajo, H. (2022, June 22). Shared vector register of RISC-V for the future hardware acceleration. carrv.github. https://carrv.github.io/2022/papers/CARRV2022_paper_10_Tanaka.pdf ↩︎

  13. Suzuki, T., Miyakazi, T., Inaritai, T., & Otsuka, T. (2022, June 20). Quantum AI simulator using a hybrid CPU–FPGA approach. arXiv.org . https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.09593.pdf ↩︎

  14. Zhang, B., Zeng, H., & Prasanna, V. (2022, June 17). Low-latency mini-batch GNN inference on CPU-FPGA heterogeneous platform. arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.08536.pdf ↩︎