Performance evaluation of a distributed integrative architecture for robotics
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Date
2007
DOI
Open Access Location
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Massey University
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Abstract
The eld of robotics employs a vast amount of coupled sub-systems. These need to interact
cooperatively and concurrently in order to yield the desired results. Some hybrid algorithms
also require intensive cooperative interactions internally. The architecture proposed lends it-
self amenable to problem domains that require rigorous calculations that are usually impeded
by the capacity of a single machine, and incompatibility issues between software computing
elements. Implementations are abstracted away from the physical hardware for ease of de-
velopment and competition in simulation leagues. Monolithic developments are complex, and
the desire for decoupled architectures arises. Decoupling also lowers the threshold for using
distributed and parallel resources. The ability to re-use and re-combine components on de-
mand, therefore is essential, while maintaining the necessary degree of interaction. For this
reason we propose to build software components on top of a Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA) using Web Services. An additional bene t is platform independence regarding both
the operating system and the implementation language. The robot soccer platform as well
as the associated simulation leagues are the target domain for the development. Furthermore
are machine vision and remote process control related portions of the architecture currently
in development and testing for industrial environments. We provide numerical data based on
the Python frameworks ZSI and SOAPpy undermining the suitability of this approach for the
eld of robotics. Response times of signi cantly less than 50 ms even for fully interpreted,
dynamic languages provides hard information showing the feasibility of Web Services based
SOAs even in time critical robotic applications.
Description
Keywords
Robotics, Machine vision, Artificial intelligence, Service oriented architecture, Distributed computing
Citation
Kloss, G.K. (2007), Performance evaluation of a distributed integrative architecture for robotics, Research Letters in the Information and Mathematical Sciences, 11, 61-70