1. Standards or no Standards in Advanced Robotics that is the Question Erwin Prassler B-IT Bonn-Aachen Int. Center for Information Technology Applied Science Institute Grantham-Allee 20, 53757 St. Augustin, GERMANY erwin.prassler@fh-brs.de Standards or no Standards in Advanced Robotics that is the Question Erwin Prassler B-IT Bonn-Aachen Int. Center for Information Technology Applied Science Institute Grantham-Allee 20, 53757 St. Augustin, GERMANY erwin.prassler@fh-brs.de

2. Standards …

3. … or no standards in car manufacturing

4. CAD-model of first prototype No standards …

5. CAD-model of first prototype … or standards in robotics design Challenges integration of heterogeneous modules interchangeability of modules integration of hybrid control paradigms coordination of a multitude of technical components and their behaviors robustness self-modeling, monitoring, diagnosis maintainability re-usability

6. “Commonalities” in the robotics domain Extremely heterogeneous hardware Inherently concurrent Inherently distributed Device dependent Stochastic properties of physical world Real-time constrained Resource constrained Currently not adequately supported by available robot software architectures robot software development environments Inadequate evaluation and assessment Mere demonstration character “Commonalities” in the robotics domain

7. Robots, robot teams, sensor networks are distributed system composed of very heterogeneous hardware – sensors: bumpers, IRs, sonars, laser scanners, accelerometers, gyros, GPS, microphones, cameras, omni-cams, stereo-heads – actuators: DC motors, steppers, servos, kickers, pan-tilts, arms, hands, legs, HDoF bodies, polymorphic systems – computational entities: microcontrollers, embedded PCs, PDAs, notebooks, remote PCs – communication devices, mechanisms, and protocols: I2C, serial, CAN, USB, UDP, TCP/IP, Firewire No plug and play! No configuration management! Heterogeneity grows over system lifetime! Design of Autonomous Robots Heterogeneity of Hardware

8. “Commonalities” in the robotics domain Design of Autonomous Robots Diversity of Software Roboticists use a wide diversity of often computationally intensive methods – Control theory – Computational geometry – Neural networks – Genetic algorithms and evolutionary methods – Reinforcement learning – Vision processing routines – AI planning techniques – Behavior systems – Probabilistic reasoning – Optimization techniques – Search techniques All these problems make software development for mobile robots very complex and error-prone

9. Player/Stage/Gazebo MCA2 Smartsoft Miro Marie ORCA2 B-IT Tutorial on Robot Middleware and Integration Frameworks “Commonalities” in the robotics domain

10. SLAMPath PlanningVisionObject RecogObject TrackTask PlanningLoggingLearning VacuumBotNurseBot ShopBotNannyBot VacuumBotNurseBotShopBotNannyBot VacuumBotNurseBotShopBotNannyBot VacuumBot 0 NurseBot 0 ShopBot 0 NannyBot 0 ORCA Components SmartSoft Builder RHI GUI Miro Logging Smartsoft Comm Patterns Marie Mediator Patterns MCA2 Control Player Fiducial Miro BAP Miro MCL Miro VIP Miro LAP Robot Method Framework Layer Robot Component Framework Layer RCA Framework Layer Service Robot Applications X Component - application frameworks - component libraries - functional class libraries + methods + patterns + generic utilities + CBSE + domain knowledge Network Service Layer BaseDriveFileIF LaserFileIF Base Drive Device Laser Device File Interface Layer Device Driver Layer Arm Device Comm Device Class Layer ArmFileIF CommFileIF BaseDriveClass LaserClass ArmClass CommClass Base Drive Service Laser Service Arm Service CORBA Services WebServices - services - classes - file I/O - functions + protocols + network-transp. access + object-orientation + coherent file IF + plurality of vendor IFs

11. What Makes The Problem Hard? All in all no common architectures no common methods hardware-dependency of developed code missing abstractions no reusable components

12. Standards or no Standards in Advanced Robotics is that really a Question? Standards or no Standards in Advanced Robotics is that really a Question?

13. RoSta Robot Standards and Reference Architectures for Service Robots and Mobile Manipulation EU Coordination Action IST-045304 RoSta Robot Standards and Reference Architectures for Service Robots and Mobile Manipulation EU Coordination Action IST-045304

14. RoSta Robot Standards and Reference Architectures RoSta Robot Standards and Reference Architectures www.euron.org www.service-robotik-initiative.de www.eu-nited-robotics.net www.robotics-platform.eu.com

15. RoSta’s Overall Mission Europe as key player in the definition of formal standards and the establishment of “de facto” standards in the field of robotics, especially service robotics. Formulation of action plans for defining standards in a very few, selected key topics which have the highest possible impact. Form the root of a whole chain of standard defining activities going beyond the specific activities of RoSta. Topics Glossary/ontology for mobile manipulation, service robots Specification of a reference architecture Specification of a middleware Formulation of benchmarks

16. No.PartnersRole 1FhG-IPACoordinator, Lead WP4 “Benchmarks for Mobile Manipulation and Service Robots” 2FHBRSLead WP3 “Middleware for Mobile Manipulation and Service Robots 3LTHLead WP2 “Reference Architecture for Mobile Manipulation and Service Robots” 4UVRLead WP1 “Glossary/Ontology for Mobile Manipulation and Service Robots” 5Sagem DSCooperation RoSta and CARE (EUROP), contributions to architecture and benchmarking WPs 6GPSLead WP MA “Management”, set-up, maintenance of project infrastructure, controlling, etc. 7VISUALKnowledge hub, contribution to ontologies and architectures/middleware WPs 8EUnitedMultiplier to European robotics industry, coordination with standardization initiatives Project Profile Relation: FP6, Priority 2: “Information Society Technologies”, 6 th Call, 2.6.1 Advanced Robotics; Contract IST-045304 Duration: Jan. 1 st, 2007 to Dec. 31 st, 2008 (24 months) Budget: ~ 1 MEUR Project Lead: Fraunhofer IPA Project office: GPS Stuttgart

17. “Challenge 2: Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics” (~€195m), future calls Ultimate RoSta Deliverables Each line of activity will result either in: An action plan for a standard defining activity or An action plan and a recommendation/proposal to the European Commission for a supported activity (e.g. a open-source project with financial support in FP7) or An action plan for a community driven open-source activity with seed-money for example to run a project office or alike

18. RoSta Overall Structure

19. The RoSta Workplan RoSta Expert meetings Consolidation meetings Expert studies Expert group Stakeholders; Research, EC WP i.1 State of the art T0+1 Expert meeting (6-8 experts) T0+3Expert meeting dito T0+5Expert meeting dito T0+7Consolidation meeting with all stakeholders WP i.2 Requirement analysis T0+7Expert meeting (6-8 experts) T0+9Expert meeting dito T0+11Expert meeting dito T0+13Consolidation meeting with all stakeholders WP i.3 Action plan and recommendation T0+13Expert meeting 6 - 8 experts T0+15Expert meeting dito T0+17Expert meeting dito T0+19Consolidation meeting with all stakeholders T0+20: compilation of reports etc.

20. Cooperations with IEEE & OMG RoSta Expert meetings Consolidation meetings Expert studies Expert group Stakeholders; Research, EC

21. RoSta Overall Time Line

22. RoSta Overall Structure

23. Selection of Experts Criteria: Unbiased Reliable Key-players Two-step selection process: Public announcement and CFP Select 8-10 experts/activity Expert participation: Contribution to RoSta Wiki Attending at expert meetings and work shops RoSta Robot suppliers Robot component manufacturers Service robotics industries Research, academia EC EURON EUnited Standardization bodies Public all IPA GPS Industrial stakeholders

24. Middleware:Objectives Objectives Given the variety (“zoo”) of middleware and integration frameworks in robotics identify the requirements of the academic and industrial community for communication infrastructure and distributed system design are met by available solutions identify possible mismatches and unmet requirements elaborate action plan for harmonizing, revising, expanding existing approaches

25. Tasks Compilation and evaluation of State of the Art in Robot Middleware Requirement analysis Action plan and recommendation Middleware:Tasks

26. RoSta wiki and mailing list on middleware and architecture wiki.robot-standards.org/index.php/Middleware middleware@robot-standards.org considerable data on state of the art in bibliography and reports currently app. 30 subscribers to RoSta wiki standardization related activities/ideas, determination of existing standards and software which can be re-used. new section on state of the art in robustness state of the art on dependability in robotics (fault tolerance, robustness, etc.) Middleware:Wiki

27. Wiki content State of the art Comparison and evaluation Requirement analysis Definitions/references Dependability Other robotic projects Middleware:Wiki

28. State of the art content and structure Middleware:Wiki

29. Sample description System organization Communication app. Other features, fault tolerance Middleware:Wiki

30. Section “Architectural practices” Middleware:Wiki

31. Section “Re-use and Standardization” Middleware:Wiki

32. Section “Re-use and Standardization” Middleware:Wiki

33. Section “Bibliography” Middleware:Wiki

34. Section “Catalogue of robotics software projects” Middleware:Wiki

35. Section “Dependability in robotics” Middleware:Wiki

36. Section “robotic fault tolerance and robustness” Middleware:Wiki

37. Expert meetings expert meeting and a workshop at two biggest robotics conferences: ICRA 2007 and IROS 2008 presentation of RoSta at OMG robotics DTF meeting regular meetings with experts on the phone, mailing list and face-to-face (in cooperation with University of Lund and University of Leuven) RoSta middleware questionnaire with EUnited is distributed to industrial community Middleware:Wiki

38. Middleware for mobile manipulation and service robots Expert meetings Middleware:Wiki

39. List of experts Anthony Mallet and Sara Fleury, LAAS RIA William D. Smart, Washington University in St. Louis Davide Brugali, University of Bergamo Brian Gerkey, SRI International Issa Nesnas, Hans Utz,NASA JPL Carle Cote, University of Sherbrooke Christoph Borst, DLR Robotics Herman Bruyninckx, University of Leuven Berthold Baeuml, German Aerospace Center Abheek Bose, ADA Robotics Chief Robotics Engineer Andrew Tanenbaum, Vrije University Alexey Makarenko, Alex Brooks and Tobias Kaup, University of Sydney Gerhard Kraetzschmar and Paul Ploeger, Fraunhofer IAIS Middleware:Wiki

40. RoSta workshop at IROS 2007 Middleware:Wiki

41. Middleware/architecture workshop at IROS 2007 Middleware:Wiki

42. Questionnaire for requirement analysis Middleware:Wiki

43. Painful lessons: Senior experts are totally overbooked. It is impossible to recruit them for a series of workshops in two months intervals Contingency measure: – do as much work as possible by BSCW tools (Wiki), email, and VoIP  resulted in a very comprehensive Wiki with a steadily increasing contributions by the community – transfer RoSta Wiki on Middleware to Wikipedia to increase reach-out Efforts which need to be invested in the three tasks are NOT uniformly distributed. State of the Art can be done locally (personnel effort, little travel) Requirement analysis is very hard (higher personnel effort, significantly more travel Contingency measure: money not spend for Task 3.1 will go into Task 3.2 Middleware:Lessons 2Middleware for mobile manipulation and service robots