A software architecture framework for service robots

Abstract

Service robot is a complex system, which demands a highly flexible, extensible, and maintainable software architecture framework to achieve its goals/tasks. This paper describes a software architecture framework designed to fulfill these needs. To date, the architecture has been successfully applied to the development of different service robots; Olivia, Mika and Lucas developed by A*STAR Social Robotics Laboratory (ASORO). These service robots have different hardware and software requirements and are exhibited in various events, including RoboCup 2010, World Cities Summit and TechFest 2010. During the course of these events, these robots successfully demonstrated the functionality of the software architecture that seamlessly integrates various robotics components in completing a challenging real-world task. Most significantly, the architecture demonstrated its flexibility, extensibility, and maintainability to different domains. These outcomes indicate that the architecture has potential to contribute towards the long term goal of intelligent service robotics in different service domains.

Implementation of a novel complex mechatronics software framework on laser micromachining workstation

“…Modular and reusable layered software architecture is developed for Home Service Robots [10] where computations are categorized to different layers from higher to lower such as central control unit, functional unit and mechanism abstraction, respectively. Similarly integration of various robotic components for service robots is considered in [11], [12]. Reusable open source soft-ware libraries for motion planning of a robot is also presented [13].…”