The Lifeblood of Robotics

Robotics x Gaming

One of Konvoy's core beliefs is that innovation will take place where people spend their time. We have consistently seen gaming as an incubator for emerging technologies, from graphics and blockchain to VR and AI. This week, we want to dive into another emerging technology that we are excited to see intersect with gaming: robotics.

Recent news about robotics has focused on things like Tesla’s Optimus (humanoid robot) or Boston Dynamics’ Spot (canine robot). NVIDIA suggests that the market for humanoid robots is expected to grow to $38bn by 2035. However, we want to take a step back and look at the Robot Operating System (ROS), an open-source robotics middleware suite, explore how it has evolved and mirrors the development of game engines, and how it has helped to catalyze the robotics industry.

The Robot Operating System

While ROS stands for Robot Operating System, it is not actually an operating system. ROS is a set of open-source software libraries and tools that help build robots. Willow Garage publicly released ROS in 2007 after it was incubated by two Stanford Ph.D.s, Eric Berger and Keenan Wyrobek (IEEE).

The original pitch for ROS was the “Linux of Robotics” which was derived from Eric and Keenan’s belief that robotics developers spend too much time re-creating foundational code to make robots work. They believed that if developers were given a pre-existing code base that could provide a foundation of basic functionality, developers would be able to skip over a large portion of the laborious work and focus on innovation.

Today, ROS has a global community of millions of developers and has over 1,250 companies using the software, including industry giants like AWS, ARM, Intel, and Boeing (Format, GitHub, Open Robotics). From December 2014 to December 2020 (where data becomes less reliable) visitors to the ROS packages website grew at over a 50% CAGR.

ROS v2.0 was officially released in 2017 and built on ROS v1.0 to address the growing needs of developers, specifically from a commercial perspective (ROS.org). This includes improved security, support for multi-robot systems and real-time control, and improved connectivity and performance scalability (ROS2.org).

Parallels to Game Engines

While there are other factors in the recent developments in robotics, such as affordable Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and cameras, the adoption of ROS has been one of the largest contributors to driving momentum. Historically when developers began building for robotics, they were required to build from scratch and only when the foundation was established could they begin to innovate. Eric and Keenan set out to address this key value proposition, as seen in their pitch deck below (IEEE).

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We have seen this playbook in gaming as well. At the beginning of game development, each developer was required to build their own engine, teaching the computer how to display digital worlds on screen at the beginning of every new project. As early as 1993, id Software - the iconic developer of the Wolfenstein, DOOM, and QUAKE games - was licensing out their game engine to other emerging developers. Unreal Engine and Unity have gone on to lead in the space and new open source alternatives like Godot further make this technology accessible.

If you compare the beginning of “3D” game engine licensing with the DOOMengine in 1993 to the creation of ROS in 2007, one could argue that robotics is ~14 years behind the development curve relative to games. However, the rate of development has rapidly increased recently with large players like Hugging Face and NVIDIA partnering to bring more open source tools to the community.

Where Do Robots and Gaming Intersect?

We expect robotics and technology to overlap in more than just their development past. We expect this to emerge in two ways:

1. Simulation: We had the life of a robotics developer explained to us as “sitting on a cement floor at 2am trying to figure out why the robot won't move the way you expected.” One emerging solution for this dilemma is to run robotics code in game engines prior to implementing it in the physical robot. For example, if you were building a pathfinding algorithm which is intended to help the robot move to a location within a 3D space, you could instead implement this in a game engine to determine its viability. Notably, these types of algorithms are already used in game development, making the engines a natural testing ground. We have written about the benefits of game engines for simulation and synthetic data and how it is already impacting multi-billion dollar industries like aerospace and logistics. This market is expected to grow to upwards of $30Bn by 2032 and we would expect robotics to play a large role (Fortune).
2. Physical & Digital Games: Blending physical and digital components of games is not a new idea. Skylanders is an example of physical collectibles enabling variations in your in game play, and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was an innovative approach to bringing your whole physical space into a digital world. Activision announced in 2013 that Skylanders had generated over $1.5Bn in retail sales and had become one of their top selling IPs.  The broader accessibility of robotics is likely to lead to innovation in this area in ways that we cannot anticipate. This could manifest as more complex versions of Beyblades or as a physical companion that comes to life in a digital world. Figure.ai is using a similar approach to generate synthetic data that can be used to train robots to walk.

Konvoy is excited to look at robotics in all of its forms, from software that aids in simulation and development to physical robots that are supporting industries outside of games.

Takeaway: Gaming has historically been an incubator for new technology, and we expect robotics to make an appearance. Similar to how Unreal and Unity revolutionized digital worlds by providing developers pre-packaged tools, the open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) has streamlined the robotics development process allowing for innovation at scale. We expect robotics and gaming to meld together in multiple ways, but are particularly excited for the creativity we are likely to see in physical-digital gaming experiences.