A CORBA-based simulation and control framework for mobile robots

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper presents a distributed multiple mobile robots framework which allows programming and control of virtual and real mobile robots. The system provides the map building, path planning, robot task planning, simulation, and actual robot control functions in an indoor environment. Users can program the virtual robots in a customized simulation environment and check the performance of execution, i.e., if the simulation result is satisfying, users can download the code to a real robot. The paper focuses on the distributed architecture and key technologies of virtual robots simulation and control of real robots. A method for construction and transfer of a key index value (which stores the robot configuration) is proposed. Using this method, only the robot key configuration index is needed to build the robot in the virtual environment. This results in reduced network load and improved real time performance of the distributed system. Experiments were conducted to compare the performance of the proposed system with the performance of a centralized system. The results show that the distributed system uses less system resources and has better real time performance. What is more, this framework has been applied to Yaskawa's robot “SmartPal.” The simulation and experiment results show that our robotic framework can simulate and control the robot to perform complex tasks.