Sebastian Petters

Modular software architecture for teams of cooperating, heterogeneous robots

For teams of cooperating autonomous lightweight robots with challenging dynamical locomotion properties a platform independent modular software architecture and platform independent modules for sensor data processing, planning and motion control have been developed. The software architecture allows high level communication between modules on different abstraction levels of the control architecture within one robot system as well as communication between different and heterogeneous robots and computers using wireless network. Very different behavior control paradigms may be realized on the basis of the developed architecture. The application to teams of cooperating small and medium size humanoid robots is investigated in this paper. Scenarios for inter robot communication and cooperative task accomplishment are described.

Multilevel Testing of Control Software for Teams of Autonomous Mobile Robots

Developing control software for teams of autonomous mobile robots is a challenging task, which can be facilitated using frameworks with ready to use components. But testing and debugging the resulting system as teached in modern software engineering to be free of errors and tolerant to sensor noise in a real world scenario is to a large extend beyond the scope of current approaches. In this paper multilevel testing strategies using the developed frameworks RoboFrame and MuRoSimF are presented. Testing incorporating automated tests, online and offline analysis and software-in-the-loop (SIL) tests in combination with real robot hardware or an adequate simulation are highly facilitated by the two frameworks. Thus the efficiency of validation of complex real world applications is improved. In this way potential errors can be identified early in the development process and error situations in real world operations can be reduced significantly.

Reusable architecture and tools for teams of lightweight heterogeneous robots

The software framework RoboFrame has been designed to meet the special requirements for teams of lightweight autonomous heterogeneous robot systems. Due to platform abstraction and modern object oriented design, it allows the reuse of components of common robot control software. It can also efficiently be implemented on new platforms and enables different control architectures for different tasks. For the exemplary application in autonomous robot soccer teams configurable and portable algorithms for vision, world modeling, behavior and motion control have been developed on top of the framework. For debugging, controlling and monitoring, an extendable graphical user interface and a generic simulator package have been implemented around the framework. Based on these instruments, different applications for homogeneous and heterogeneous robot teams can be realized in short time.

A New, Open and Modular Platform for Research in Autonomous Four-Legged Robots

In this paper the design goals for a new, open and modular, four-legged robot platform are described that was developed in reaction to the open call for a standard platform issued by the RoboCup Federation in 2006. The new robot should have similar motion and sensing capabilities like the previously used Sony AIBO plus several new ones. The hardware and software should be open, modular and reconfigurable. The robot should be resonably priced and allow annually upgrades.

Architektur und Komponenten für ein heterogenes Team kooperierender, autonomer humanoider Roboter

Fur ein kooperierendes Team autonomer, humanoider Roboter, das derzeit aus insgesamt vier unterschiedlichen, ca. 37–68 cm grosen Robotertypen besteht, werden eine plattformubergreifende, modulare Software-architektur sowie plattformubergreifende und individuelle Module zur Sensordatenverarbeitung, Planung und Bewegungssteuerung entwickelt. Das entwickelte funktionale Framework ermoglicht die Kommunikation der Softwaremodule, d.h. Algorithmen fur die unterschiedlichen Aufgaben innerhalb der Architektur untereinander, sowie die Kommunikation per WLAN zwischen verschiedenen Rechnern und Robotern. Als Anwendungsszenario fur die Teamkooperation in einer dynamischen und strukturierten Umgebung wird Roboterfusball untersucht. Die entwickelten Methoden wurden im Juli 2005 von den Darmstadt Dribblers beim RoboCup in Osaka bei der Premiere von Teamspielen in der Humanoid Robot League eingesetzt. Daneben werden Kooperationsszenarien von heterogenen Robotersystemen bestehend aus vierbeinigen und humanoiden Robotern untersucht.