A Smart Service Robot Middleware on Ubiquitous Network Environments

Abstract

As the importance of robot software has increased, a number of research on robot middleware within client-server architecture has been produced for the past several years. Those middleware usually provide convenient environments, where developers are able to develop robot services in conjunction with the existing libraries. Therefore, rich libraries are essential in the robot middleware. This paper introduces experience learned while developing robot software using the middleware. The middleware allows a robot's functions to be described in XML, to be registered to a Web Service server, and to be reused as a Web Service. The approach has some advantages: separation a robot's abstract behaviors from hardware dependent implementation, reuse of the existing robot software implementation, and finally, the possibility of cooperation among various robots.