Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T16:42:49.153Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A CORBA-based simulation and control framework for mobile robots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Zhang Zhen ,
Cao Qixin ,
Charles Lo  and
Zhang Lei
Zhang Zhen*
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Robotics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P.R. China.
Cao Qixin
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Robotics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P.R. China.
Charles Lo
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Robotics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P.R. China.
Zhang Lei
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Robotics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, P.R. China.
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: zzh2200_0@126.com, zzh2000@sjtu.edu.cn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This paper presents a distributed multiple mobile robots framework which allows programming and control of virtual and real mobile robots. The system provides the map building, path planning, robot task planning, simulation, and actual robot control functions in an indoor environment. Users can program the virtual robots in a customized simulation environment and check the performance of execution, i.e., if the simulation result is satisfying, users can download the code to a real robot. The paper focuses on the distributed architecture and key technologies of virtual robots simulation and control of real robots. A method for construction and transfer of a key index value (which stores the robot configuration) is proposed. Using this method, only the robot key configuration index is needed to build the robot in the virtual environment. This results in reduced network load and improved real time performance of the distributed system. Experiments were conducted to compare the performance of the proposed system with the performance of a centralized system. The results show that the distributed system uses less system resources and has better real time performance. What is more, this framework has been applied to Yaskawa's robot “SmartPal.” The simulation and experiment results show that our robotic framework can simulate and control the robot to perform complex tasks.

Keywords

Mobile robotCORBASimulationReal robot control
Type
Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , May 2009 , pp. 459 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Matsukuma, K., Handa, H. and Yokoyama, K., “Vision-Based Manipulation System for Autonomous Mobile Robot ‘Smartpal’”. Proceedings of the Japan Robot Association Conference, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Japan (Sep. 2004).Google Scholar
2.Chang-wu, Qiu, Qi-xin, Cao, Nagamatsu, Ikuo and Yokoyama, Kazuhiko, “Graphical programming and 3-D simulation environment for Robot,” Robot 27 (5), 436–440 (Sep. 2005).Google Scholar
3.Object Management Group. White paper on benchmarking, Version 1.0, OMG document bench/99-12-01 (1999).Google Scholar
4.Henning, M. and Vinoski, S., Advanced CORBA Programming with C++ (Addison Wesley, Reading MA, 1999).Google Scholar
5.Object Management Group. OMG Robotics Domain Special Interesting Group (DSIG) Homepage. Available: http://robotics.omg.org.Google Scholar
6.Mizukawa, M., Matsuka, H., Koyama, T., Inukai, T., Noda, A., Tezuka, H., Noguchi, Y. and Otera, N., “ORiN Open Robot Interface for the Network – The Standard Network Interface for Industrial Robots and its Applications,” International Symposium on Robotics Stockholm (ISR2002), No.45 (Oct. 2002).Google Scholar
7.Mizukawa, M., Matsuka, H., Koyama, T., Inukai, T., Noda, A., Tezuka, H., Noguchi, Y. and Otera, N., “ORiN: Open Robot Interface for the Network – The Standard and Unified Network Interface for Industrial Robot Applications,” SICE Annual Conference, Osaka (2002), pp. 1160–1163.Google Scholar
8.Orocos: Open Robot Control Software. http://www.orocos.org.Google Scholar
9.Schlegel, C. and Worz, R., “The Software Framework SmartSoft for Implementing Sensorimotor Systems,” IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS '99, Kyongju, Korea (Oct. 1999) pp. 1610–1616.Google Scholar
10.Ozaki, Fumio, “Open Robot Controller Architecture (ORCA),” Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2004), Workshop on Robot Middleware toward Standards, Sendai, Japan (Sep. 2004).Google Scholar
11.Ozaki, Fumio, “Open Robot Controller Architecture (ORCA),” Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2003) Workshop: Middleware Technology for Open Robot Architecture, Kobe, Japan (Jul. 2003).Google Scholar
12.Sabe, Kohtaro, “Open-R: An Open Architecture for Robot Entertainment,” IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2003) Workshop: Middleware Technology for Open Robot Architecture, Kobe, Japan (Jul. 2003).Google Scholar
13.Klein, J., “BREVE: A 3-D Environment for the Simulation of Decentralized Systems and Artificial Life,” Proceedings of Artificial Life VIII, 8th International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (MIT Press, 2002) pp. 329–334.Google Scholar
14.Montemerlo, M., Roy, N. and Thrun, S., “Perspectives on Standardization in Mobile Robot Programming: The Carnegie Mellon Navigation (CARMEN) Toolkit,” Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Las Vegas (2003) pp. 2436–2441.Google Scholar
15.Côté, C., Brosseau, Y., Létourneau, D., Raïevsky, C. and Michaud, F., “Robotic software integration using MARIE,” Int. J. Adv. Robot. Syst. – (Special Issue on Software Development and Integration in Robotics) 3 (1), 55–60 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Gerkey, B. P., Vaughan, R. T. and Howard, A., “The Player/Stage Project: Tools for Multi-Robot and Distributed Sensor Systems,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2003), Coimbra, Portugal (Jun. 30–Jul. 3, 2003) pp. 317–323.Google Scholar
17.Gerkey, B. P., Vaughan, R. T., Støy, K., Howard, A., Sukhatme, G. S. and Mataric, M. J., “Most Valuable Player: A Robot Device Server for Distributed Control,” Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2001), Wailea, Hawaii (Oct. 29–Nov. 3, 2001) pp. 1226–1231.Google Scholar
18.Sun Microsystems Inc. Java IDL and RMI-IIOP Tools. Available: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/index.html#idl (2004).Google Scholar
19.R&D Center Yaskawa Corporation. Instructions for RTLab API (Ver 1.1.2). Yaskawa Robotics Technology R&D Dept (2004).Google Scholar