ROSConversations '25
Articulated Robotics host visits ROSCon 2025 at Singapore’s Suntec Convention Centre and interviews five attendees about their work, the ROS community, and robotics’ future.
In this talk
- 0:00
ROSCon’s exhibits, workshops, and talks
The host tours the exhibition hall, where vendors show robotics hardware, software, platforms, and cloud solutions. A standout exhibit remotely operated an excavator in Japan using a laptop and Starlink. Workshops covered NVIDIA Isaac Sim and Zenoh, while talks ranged from ROS project updates to lightning talks, including a macOS ROS installation using Pixi.
- 2:27
Five attendees and their work
The host introduces independent roboticist Kimberly McGuire, Sebastian Castro of the Robotics and AI Institute, ZettaScale co-founder Angelo Corsaro, Diana Hood of Vexv, and Intrinsic software engineer Yadu Nand VJ. Their work spans ROS community and Windows support, manipulation research, cross-device communications, ultrasound vascular imaging for dialysis patients, and ROS 2 and Open-RMF contributions.
- 4:52
What people value and want to improve in ROS
All five name the community as a strength, citing shared tools, practical help, and connections across backgrounds. Attendees also describe challenges: a steep learning curve, ROS’s reputation as research-only, and a developer experience complicated by legacy use cases. Suggestions include better support for Rust and easier installation and APIs.
- 8:19
Why ROSCon matters to attendees
Attendees value ROSCon for project updates, technical presentations, and conversations that lead to practical tips and new collaborations. McGuire describes meeting another Windows ROS developer and learning about WSL 2 and GPU passthrough. Others appreciate reconnecting with online colleagues and discussing new user needs.
- 11:40
Robotics and AI’s next steps
Attendees see opportunities in robot learning and general-purpose models, but caution that AI tools need to mature and prove themselves in real applications. They anticipate more mobile robot deployments and closer integration of robotics and AI. Hood hopes to challenge the perception that ROS cannot meet medical device needs, while another attendee argues for balancing AI approaches with hand-engineered systems.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.