Nex robotics has added support for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (MRDS) on FireBird V research platform. FireBird V is one of the most widely deployed research platforms designed by Department of CSE, IIT Bombay and Nex robotics. It has many sensors and actuators which can be used for carrying out research in embedded systems, robotics, AI, sensor networks and RTOS domains. To find out more about FireBird V platform click here. 
Nex Robotics provides CCR and DSS architecture compliant services for controlling and observing states of all the sensors on FireBird V platform. The sensors and actuators on FireBird V platform can be programmed by using Visual Programming Language (VPL). Microsoft Visual Programming Language (VPL) enables you to create and debug complex robotics programs very easily. This enables a novice user with little to no coding experience to develop interesting applications on FireBird V platform. 
Nex robotics also offers the FireBird V platform as a “close to real life” simulation entity. Services are available in the simulation environment for sensors on FireBird V platform. Essentially, this allows a user to carry out initial experiments without using the actual hardware platform. Even if you have the hardware platform, it is always beneficial to test your algorithm/application in a realistic simulation environment provided by MRDS.

You can download the Nex Robotics FireBird V software installer for MRDS here.
You can download the Nex Robotics FireBird V software user guide here.
You can download the Microsoft Robotics development studio here.
You can download the Nex Robotics FireBird V Firmware for MRDS here.