Toyota Collaboration Beefs Up Robotics Expertise

Toyota Research Institute is joining forces with the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) to extend Toyota’s research and engineering expertise for autonomous vehicle and future mobility technologies.

The two-year collaboration, which also includes OSRF’s newly formed for-profit subsidiary Open Source Robotics Corp., will focus on expanding development of both open source and proprietary tools for Toyota’s robotics and automated vehicle research initiatives, according to Toyota.

The move “reflects Toyota’s ongoing evolution beyond the boundaries of the conventional automotive industry to become a broad-based mobility technology company,” Toyota said in a released statement.

Toyota Research Institute is also awarding OSRF a $1 million charitable contribution in support of its mission to advance open source robotics software.

“At Toyota, we are creating better ways to move, whether it’s across the room, across town, or across the country,” said Toyota Research Institite CEO Gill Pratt. “The Open Source Robotics Corporation team brings unparalleled technical expertise and industry-leading technology platforms, which we intend to embed in the heart of our research programs. TRI also believes that the open source movement can catalyze the development of the robotics industry, and we are excited to help OSRF expand its impact.”

OSRF is an independent nonprofit organization that now oversees development of the Robot Operating System, a flexible framework for writing robot software, and Gazebo, a 3D multi-robot simulator.