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For a long time, robotics software development was forced to choose between safe software and fast software. At first, Scythe Robotics chose a third path: Rust, the new programming language that promised a break from that dichotomy. It was a sad and brave choice at the time but paid big dividends.
Zach Goins, senior autonomy software engineer at Scythe Robotics, a developer of commercial autonomous lawnmowers, will discuss Scythe’s decision to use Rust for software development during his talk at Robotics Summit and Expo called “Oxidizing Your Software Development: Rust for Robotics.” The talk will take place at the Boston Convention Center on May 11, 2023, at 2:00 PM.
Goins will discuss how Scythe leveraged Rust’s strengths to build a robot software platform that is both reliable and performant, while still enabling high-velocity development. For example, leveraging the best parts of both ROS and Rust is possible with the mature rosrust crate, which allows engineers to leverage existing ROS tools as well as the broader crates.io package ecosystem. Additionally, direct integration with other existing C/C++ software is also straightforward, allowing reuse of proven libraries and device-specific features such as compute accelerators and other C/C++ platform SDKs .
Scythe’s rapid development is, in no small part, due to Rust’s strengths and the confidence it unlocks for developers to move quickly and build things reliably. This talk will be a guide for others looking to oxidize and accelerate their software development process.