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Massively multi-robot simulation in stage
, 2008
"... Stage is a C++ software library that simulates multiple mobile robots. Stage version 2, as the simulation backend for the Player/Stage system, may be the most commonly used robot simulator in research and university teaching today. Development of Stage version 3 has focused on improving scalability ..."
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Cited by 52 (7 self)
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Stage is a C++ software library that simulates multiple mobile robots. Stage version 2, as the simulation backend for the Player/Stage system, may be the most commonly used robot simulator in research and university teaching today. Development of Stage version 3 has focused on improving scalability, usability, and portability. This paper examines Stage’s scalability. We propose a simple benchmark for multi-robot simulator performance, and present results for Stage. Run time is shown to scale approximately linearly with population size up to 100,000 robots. For example, Stage simulates 1 simple robot at around 1,000 times faster than real time, and 1,000 simple robots at around real time. These results suggest that Stage may be useful for swarm robotics researchers who would otherwise use custom simulators, with their attendant disadvantages in terms of code reuse and transparency.
Towards Long-Lived Robot Genes
- Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems
, 2008
"... Robot projects are often evolutionary dead ends, with the software and hardware they produce disappearing without trace afterwards. Common causes include depen-dencies on uncommon or obsolete devices or libraries, and dispersion of an already small group of users. In humanoid robotics, a small field ..."
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Cited by 50 (11 self)
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Robot projects are often evolutionary dead ends, with the software and hardware they produce disappearing without trace afterwards. Common causes include depen-dencies on uncommon or obsolete devices or libraries, and dispersion of an already small group of users. In humanoid robotics, a small field with an avid appetite for novel devices, we experience a great deal of “churn ” of this nature. In this paper, we explore how best to connect our software with the mainstream, so that it can be more stable and long-lasting, without compromising our ability to constantly change our sensors, actuators, processors, and networks. We also look at how to encourage the propagation and evolution of hardware designs, so that we can start to build up a “gene-pool ” of material to draw upon for new projects. We advance on two fronts, software and hardware. Building on our robot software architecture YARP [11], we focus on how to organize communication between sen-sors, processors, and actuators so that loose coupling is encouraged, making grad-ual system evolution much easier. We develop a model of communication that is transport-neutral, so that data flow is decoupled from the details of the underly-ing networks and protocols in use (allowing several to be used simultaneously, key to smooth evolution). We develop a methodology for interfacing with devices (sen-sors, actuators, etc.) that again encourages loose coupling and can make changes in devices less disruptive. At the same time, we are concerned with the problem of incompatible architectures and frameworks, and discuss how we work around this. We emphasize the strategic utility of the Free Software social contract [15] to soft-ware development for small communities with idiosyncratic requirements. We also work to expand our community by releasing the design of our ICub humanoid [23] under a free and open license, and funding development using this platform. Key words: humanoid robotics, free software, device drivers, ICub humanoid, YARP
Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective
- SWARM INTELL
, 2013
"... Swarm robotics is an approach to collective robotics that takes inspiration from the self-organized behaviors of social animals. Through simple rules and local interactions, swarm robotics aims at designing robust, scalable, and flexible collective behaviors for the coordination of large numbers of ..."
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Cited by 42 (27 self)
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Swarm robotics is an approach to collective robotics that takes inspiration from the self-organized behaviors of social animals. Through simple rules and local interactions, swarm robotics aims at designing robust, scalable, and flexible collective behaviors for the coordination of large numbers of robots. In this paper, we analyze the literature from the point of view of swarm engineering: we focus mainly on ideas and concepts that contribute to the advancement of swarm robotics as an engineering field and that could be relevant to tackle real-world applications. Swarm engineering is an emerging discipline that aims at defining systematic and well founded procedures for modeling, designing, realizing, verifying, validating, operating, and maintaining a swarm robotics system. We propose two taxonomies: in the first taxonomy, we classify works that deal with design and analysis methods; in the second taxonomy, we classify works according to the collective behavior studied. We conclude with a discussion of the current limits of swarm robotics as an engineering discipline and with suggestions for future research directions.
ARGoS: A modular, multi-engine simulator for heterogeneous swarm robotics
- In Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’11
, 2011
"... The information provided is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the members of IRIDIA. The authors take full responsibility for any copyright breaches that may result from publication of this paper in the IRIDIA – Technical Report Series. IRIDIA is ..."
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Cited by 36 (29 self)
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The information provided is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the members of IRIDIA. The authors take full responsibility for any copyright breaches that may result from publication of this paper in the IRIDIA – Technical Report Series. IRIDIA is not responsible for any use that might be made of data appearing in this publication. ARGoS:
Middleware for robotics: A survey
- In IEEE International Conference on Robotics, Automation, and Mechatronics (RAM 2008
, 2008
"... Abstract—The field of robotics relies heavily on various technologies such as mechatronics, computing systems, and wireless communication. Given the fast growing technological progress in these fields, robots can offer a wide range of applications. However real world integration and application deve ..."
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Cited by 23 (1 self)
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Abstract—The field of robotics relies heavily on various technologies such as mechatronics, computing systems, and wireless communication. Given the fast growing technological progress in these fields, robots can offer a wide range of applications. However real world integration and application development for such a distributed system composed of many robotic modules and networked robotic devices is very difficult. Therefore, middleware services provide a novel approach offering many possibilities and drastically enhancing the application development for robots. This paper surveys the current state of middleware approaches in this domain. It discusses middleware challenges in these systems and presents some representative middleware solutions specifically designed for robots. The selection of the studied methods tries to cover most of the middleware platforms, objectives and approaches that have been proposed by researchers in this field. Keywords—robots, middleware, robot system integration I.
Bridging the Sense-Reasoning Gap: DyKnow -- Stream-Based Middleware for Knowledge Processing
, 2008
"... Engineering autonomous agents that display rational and goal-directed behavior in dynamic physical environments requires a steady flow of information from sensors to high level reasoning components. However, while sensors tend to generate noisy and incomplete quantitative data, reasoning often requi ..."
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Cited by 20 (13 self)
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Engineering autonomous agents that display rational and goal-directed behavior in dynamic physical environments requires a steady flow of information from sensors to high level reasoning components. However, while sensors tend to generate noisy and incomplete quantitative data, reasoning often requires crisp symbolic knowledge. The gap between sensing and reasoning is quite wide, and cannot in general be bridged in a single step. Instead, this task requires a more general approach to integrating and organizing multiple forms of information and knowledge processing on different levels of abstraction in a structured and principled manner. We propose knowledge processing middleware as a systematic approach for organizing such processing. Desirable properties of such middleware are presented and motivated. We argue that a declarative stream-based system is appropriate to provide the desired functionality and present DyKnow, a concrete implemented instantiation of stream-based knowledge processing middleware with a formal semantics. Several types of knowledge processes are described and motivated in the context of a UAV traffic monitoring application. In the implemented application, DyKnow is used to incrementally bridge the sense-reasoning gap and generate partial logical models of the environment over which metric temporal logical formulas are evaluated. Using such formulas, hypotheses are formed and validated about the type of vehicles being observed. DyKnow is also used to generate event streams representing for example changes in qualitative spatial relations, which are used to detect traffic violations expressed as declarative chronicles.
Modular Open Robots Simulation Engine: MORSE
- in Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
, 2011
"... Abstract — This paper presents MORSE, a new open–source robotics simulator. MORSE provides several features of interest to robotics projects: it relies on a component-based architecture to simulate sensors, actuators and robots; it is flexible, able to specify simulations at variable levels of abstr ..."
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Cited by 14 (2 self)
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Abstract — This paper presents MORSE, a new open–source robotics simulator. MORSE provides several features of interest to robotics projects: it relies on a component-based architecture to simulate sensors, actuators and robots; it is flexible, able to specify simulations at variable levels of abstraction according to the systems being tested; it is capable of representing a large variety of heterogeneous robots and full 3D environments (aerial, ground, maritime); and it is designed to allow simu-lations of multiple robots systems. MORSE uses a “Software-in-the-Loop ” philosophy, i.e. it gives the possibility to evaluate the algorithms embedded in the software architecture of the robot within which they are to be integrated. Still, MORSE is independent of any robot architecture or communication framework (middleware). MORSE is built on top of Blender, using its powerful features and extending its functionality through Python scripts. Simulations are executed on Blender’s Game Engine mode, which provides a realistic graphical display of the simulated environments and allows exploiting the reputed Bullet physics engine. This paper presents the conception principles of the simulator and some use–case illustrations. I.
A comparative evaluation of robotic software integration systems: A case study
, 2007
"... Abstract — One might expect that after nearly 50 years of research in robot manipulation and mobile robotics the architectural design of robot systems has converged to a small set of best practice solutions, very much like in the area of operating systems, where the world is dominated by less then a ..."
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Cited by 13 (0 self)
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Abstract — One might expect that after nearly 50 years of research in robot manipulation and mobile robotics the architectural design of robot systems has converged to a small set of best practice solutions, very much like in the area of operating systems, where the world is dominated by less then a handful systems. Quite the opposite is the case. It is only a small overstatement to say that almost every lab has brewed its own solution for robot control architecture, middleware and software integration concepts. One reason for this situation is the fact that the complexity and variety of systems and applications has grown considerably since then leading to a diversity of approaches. Another reason is clearly the lack of any sound methodology to measures and compare architectural designs. This article tries to address the problem by proposing a comparison and evaluation methodology for robotics software systems. The methodology facilitates an assessment of software systems through experimentation and takes into account the possible operational profile and quality attribute requirements of the robotic application. The approach is validated through the evaluation of three software systems, i.e. GenoM, ORCA2 and GO. The results suggest possible applicability domains of each system and show the efficiency of the approach. I.
HIERARCHICAL REACTIVE CONTROL FOR HUMANOID SOCCER ROBOTS
, 2008
"... Humanoid soccer serves as a benchmark problem for artificial intelligence research and robotics. Every year, more teams are competing, for example, in the RoboCup Humanoid League. As the robots improve in the basic skills of walking, kicking, and getting up, teams can focus on soccer skills and team ..."
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Cited by 13 (11 self)
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Humanoid soccer serves as a benchmark problem for artificial intelligence research and robotics. Every year, more teams are competing, for example, in the RoboCup Humanoid League. As the robots improve in the basic skills of walking, kicking, and getting up, teams can focus on soccer skills and team coordination. The complexity of soccer behaviors and team play calls for structured behavior engineering. In this paper, we describe the design of the behavior control software for the Humanoid League team NimbRo. The software is based on a framework that supports a hierarchy of reactive behaviors. It is structured both as an agent hierarchy (joint–body part–player–team) and as a time hierarchy. The speed of sensors, behaviors, and actuators decreases when moving up in the hierarchy. The lowest levels of this framework contain position control of individual joints and kinematic interfaces for body parts. At the next level, basic skills are implemented. Soccer behaviors like searching for the ball, approaching the ball, avoiding obstacles, and defending the goal reside on the player level. Finally, on the tactical level, the robots communicate via a wireless network to negotiate roles and use allocentric information to configure the soccer behaviors. Our robots performed very well at RoboCup 2007, which took place in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. They won both the KidSize and the TeenSize humanoid soccer competitions. Keywords: Reactive control; time hierarchy; agent hierarchy; RoboCup. 1.
MIRA- Middleware for Robotic Applications
"... Abstract—In this paper, we present MIRA, a new middle-ware for robotic applications. It is designed for use in real-world applications and for research and teaching. In comparison to many other existing middlewares, MIRA employs novel techniques for communication that are described in this paper. Mo ..."
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Cited by 10 (5 self)
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Abstract—In this paper, we present MIRA, a new middle-ware for robotic applications. It is designed for use in real-world applications and for research and teaching. In comparison to many other existing middlewares, MIRA employs novel techniques for communication that are described in this paper. Moreover, we present benchmarks that analyze the performance of the most commonly used middlewares ROS, Yarp, LCM, Player, Urbi, and MOOS. Using these benchmarks, we can show that MIRA outperforms the other middlewares in terms of latency and computation time. I.
