When operating a robot or a fleet, it’s likely you’ll be using ROS in your operations. An integral part of using ROS is service calls; now, we’re excited to announce that rosservice calls are now supported natively on the platform.
Although the action is still completed, manual rosservice calls took extra time, delaying the robot and potentially harming productivity. Now, Formant has integrated service calls on the platform so users can make them within Formant, with a response in less than ten seconds.
Why support rosservice calls natively?
Service calls are a fundamental part of using ROS. Before integrating service calls into the Formant platform, if a user needed to call a service, they were required to call the service manually and write their own code. This could also affect the efficiency of the robot, as requests through ROS can have a longer response time.
At Formant, we want to ensure we support this functionality so our users can seamlessly run their robots while utilizing the features of our platform. Now, users can submit their service calls directly on the platform, receiving an answer quicker than a manual call could achieve.
How to submit calls in Formant
To submit a service call, it only takes a few steps on the user’s behalf.
1. Select the service needed from the dropdown menu and click.
2. Input the different fields for the service.
3. Send the call. The service will be called automatically and return the result in under ten seconds.
If you’re a ROS user, stay tuned for more ROS updates in Formant as we hope to continuously smooth the path to the development of customer monitoring and control applications.
