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Are Middlewares Ready for Multi-robots Systems?

  • Conference paper
Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8810))

Abstract

Autonomous robot fleets are complex systems that require the interaction and communication between heterogeneous hardware and software. Despite many years of work in robotics, there is still a lack of established software architecture and middleware, in particular for large scale multi-robots systems. Many research teams are still writing specific hardware orientated software that is very tied to a robot. This vision makes sharing modules or extending existing code difficult. A robotic middleware should be designed to abstract the low-level hardware architecture, facilitate communication and integration of new software. In this paper, we present and compare seven existing middlewares capable of being used in multi-robot systems. We also present two dedicated cloud based multi-robots platforms. After this analysis, we discuss why a cloud of robots and not a cloud for robots is more suitable in a fleet context.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSA-Lyon, CITI-INRIA, Université de Lyon, 69621, Villeurbanne, France

    Stefan-Gabriel Chitic, Julien Ponge & Olivier Simonin

Authors
  1. Stefan-Gabriel Chitic
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  2. Julien Ponge
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  3. Olivier Simonin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Viale Marconi 5, 24044, Dalmine, Italy

    Davide Brugali

  2. Faculty EE-Math-CS, CTIT Institute, Robotics and Mechatronics Group, University of Twente, Room Carre 3437, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Jan F. Broenink

  3. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University, 94305-9010, Stanford, CA, USA

    Torsten Kroeger

  4. Faculty of Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Science Centre - Mathphysic, Level 2, University of Auckland, Room 303-249, 38 Princess Street, 1010, Auckland, New Zealand

    Bruce A. MacDonald

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Chitic, SG., Ponge, J., Simonin, O. (2014). Are Middlewares Ready for Multi-robots Systems?. In: Brugali, D., Broenink, J.F., Kroeger, T., MacDonald, B.A. (eds) Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots. SIMPAR 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8810. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11900-7_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11900-7_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11899-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11900-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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