A Unified Robotic Software Architecture for Service Robotics and Networks of Smart Sensors

This paper proposes a novel architecture for the programming of multi-modal service robots and networked sensors. The presented software framework eases the development of high-level applications for distributed systems. The software architecture is based upon the Roblet-Technology, which is an exceptionally powerful medium in robotics. The possibility to develop, compile and execute an application on one workstation and distribute parts of a program based on the idea of mobile code is pointed out. Since the Roblet-Technology uses Java the development is independent of the operation system. The framework hides the network communication and therefore greatly improves the programming and testing of applications in service robotics. The concept is evaluated in the context of the service robot TASER of the TAMS Institute at the University of Hamburg. This robot consists of a mobile platform with two manipulators equipped with artificial hands. Several multimodal input and output devices for interaction round off the robot. Networked cameras in the working environment of TASER provide additional information to the robot. The integration of these smart sensors shows the extendability of the proposed concept to general distributed systems.