Working with real-world robot data depends on how ROS (Robot Operating System) messages are stored. In the article 3 Ways to Store ROS Topics, we explored several approaches — including storing compressed Rosbag files in time-series storage and storing topics as separate records.

In this tutorial, we'll focus on the most common format: .bag files recorded with Rosbag. These files contain valuable data on how a robot interacts with the world — such as odometry, camera frames, LiDAR, or IMU readings — and provide the foundation for analyzing the robot's behavior.

You’ll learn how to:

• Extract motion data from .bag files
• Create basic velocity features
• Train a classification model to recognize different types of robot movements

We'll use the bagpy library to process .bag files and apply basic machine learning techniques for classification.

Although the examples in this tutorial use data from a Boston Dynamics Spot robot (performing movements like moving forward, sideways, and rotating), you can adapt the code for your recordings.

As modern manufacturing becomes increasingly data-driven, the need for efficient data acquisition systems is more critical than ever. In my previous article, Building a Data Acquisition System for Manufacturing, we discussed the challenges of data acquisition in manufacturing and how ReductStore can help solve them. Here we will learn how to use ReductStore at the edge of the shop floor and stream data to the cloud.

Data management is a very important element in modern robotics systems. As robots become more advanced, they generate massive amounts of information from various sources, such as sensor readings, system logs, and video feeds, and being able to manage this data effectively can mean the difference between a robot that performs well and one that fails to meet expectations.

In this article, we will compare different data management tools for robotics by looking into their key features, strengths, and the types of use cases they are best suited for. Understanding these differences will help robotics engineers and developers choose the right tool for their specific needs.