Embedded Component-based Framework for Robot Technology Middleware

Abstract

This paper presents a component-based framework for robot technology middleware (RTM) to address real-time issues with RTM. To handle real-time applications, the proposed framework achieves collaboration between RTM and the TOPPERS embedded component system (TECS). TECS is employed to enhance real-time processing in the proposed framework. To implement the collaboration of RTM and TECS, we have adopted remote procedure call. In addition, extending a generator enables the generation of robot technology components from TECS components with source code generated by a model-based development tool such as MATLAB/Simulink. We have evaluated the processor cycle counts of the proposed framework in comparison with those of a conventional method. Moreover, we evaluated the execution time of serial communication and a motor application using the proposed framework. The evaluation results show that the proposed framework is functionally employed in a hard real-time system. Furthermore, we evaluated the amount of code generated by the proposed framework. The evaluation results reveal that the code generated by the proposed framework is reusable and can enhance productivity.