Download Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta

The first Beta development milestone of the next-generation Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio is now available for download.

Early adopters can head over to the Microsoft Download Center and grab Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta immediately.

According to Dr. Stathis Papaefstathiou, who is leading the Microsoft Robotics Team, Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta brings nothing but love for Kinect, the company’s natural user interface (NUI) sensor released initially for Xbox.

In this regard, Robotics Developer Studio 4 is designed to build on the Kinect Services for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3, which the software giant released in mid-July 2011.

Testers taking RDS4 Beta out for a spin will be able to take advantage of native support for the Kinect sensor. Here are some of the highlights of Robotics Developer Studio 4:

“With RDS4 beta simulation tools, you don’t need physical hardware to develop a Kinect-based robot!

“For hardware, Microsoft has published a reference platform design specification for a standardized Kinect-based robot, to work with RDS4 beta. Parallax, Inc has manufactured a hardware kit based on this reference platform design specification which is available for pre-order now.

“RDS4 beta also adds support for Microsoft .NET Framework 4, XNA Game Studio 4.0, and Visual Studio 2010.”

Papaefstathiou underlines that the integration between Robotics Developer Studio 4 and Kinect does nothing more than to reflect the high level of excitement that exists within the robotics space for the company’s NUI sensor.

This is why the software giant worked to provide robot developers with a Kinect-based hardware reference platform which can streamline their work. The Parallax kit, which is already available for pre-ordering, dubbed EDDIE, offers a taste of the specification designed to simplify the development of robots.

“EDDIE is intended to be a turnkey solution for using RDS with this platform and our aspiration is that there will be development and sharing of technology for this hardware platform,” Papaefstathiou said.

“In addition, we made sure that there is an accurate representation of a robot that is based on the hardware platform in our simulation environment. You can start developing your applications in the simulator before you decide to buy and run them on a physical robot.”

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta is available for download here.