Lego EV3

[Maximilian Sieber]

Someone asked me about ROS and the new Lego Mindstorms EV3. I don't have one, so I can't work on it.
As I can say there are basically two options.
The first one is, If there is the backwards compatibility, to use it with the nxt_python USB interface,.

The better one is, to use ROS on the EV3(quoted from my answer):
The EV3 has an ARM processor with linux-kernel (debian? supported by ros, like raspberry). Wifi seems also possible? afaik Bluetooth had issues on the nxt.
But if you can run a roscore on the ev3 itself it propably won't matter.
see here: https://github.com/mindboards
someone managed it to run python on the ev3 itself: http://www.lejos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4701
Or is the python support out of the box (with hardware interfaces)?
Then you could write your own, new ros ev3 node. (better second option). Don't know if there will be a Motor Controller required, like on a NXT. (See other Post)
(You could also try porting the nxt stuff).

 The nxt would be on it's own with native ROS, without USB host. If someone has a EV3 for me, I'll do it :)

[Alexander Moriarty]

I know I'm replying to an old post, but I have good news. I got my hands on an EV3 a few weeks ago. 

I didn't even think of going for backwards compatibility because the NXT information on wiki.ros.org all seemed for electric and older. The linux option seemed easier.
I went straight for the second option you mentioned. I couldn't run roscore on the ev3.

But with roscore running on an external laptop, and using a usb-ethernet adapter on the ev3 I managed to get the talker listener rospy tutorial working. 

I haven't touched the motors or sensors since I received the kit. But that's clearly the next step. 

I just created a page on wiki.ros.org (http://wiki.ros.org/Robots/EV3) in hopes of finding other ROS users with their hands on an EV3. 

I used ev3dev, a debian linux port for the EV3 (http://www.ev3dev.org/) and their provided brickstrap project (https://github.com/ev3dev/brickstrap) to build everything on a desktop. I did try to build on the ev3 directly, but that was crazy. 

There is a link to the steps I took on the above wiki page (https://github.com/moriarty/ros-ev3/blob/master/brickstrap-build-status.md)

Cheers