A component is a reusable and replaceable software module accessed through its interface. Component‐based development is expected to shorten the development period, reduce maintenance costs, and improve program reusability and the interoperability of components. This paper proposes a new robot software component platform in order to support the entire process of robot software development. It consists of specifications of a component model, component authoring tool, component composer, and component execution engine. To show its feasibility, this paper presents the analysis results of the component's communication overhead, a comparison with other robotic software platforms, and applications in commercial robots.

Robot software components, which can be accessed through their interface, are reusable and replaceable software modules used in composing robotic services. Using robot software components in developing a robot, developers can expect shortening of developing times, reduction of maintenance cost and improvement of program reusability, because interoperability among components is guaranteed. We have developed a component framework assisting robot developers to make robot application with ease. The component framework consists of a specification of component model, a component authoring tool, a component composer, and a component container. In this paper, we will not only show the developed component framework, but also demonstrate its usability by applying to commercial robots.

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