RoboMine

Software - Robomine Technology

Introduction

Many times it can be easy to concentrate on the hardware and physical applications of technologies that one forgets a crucial aspect: the software.

In this section, we hope to clarify and explain many of the different procedures, standards and specific software used in autonomous control and agent-based robotics.

Software Technology Roadmap

The Software Technology Roadmap (STR) is a directed guide containing the latest information on more than 69 software technologies. It is of interest to anyone acquiring, building, or maintaining software intensive systems.

The document is intended to be a guide to specific software technologies of interest to those building or maintaining systems, especially those in command, control, and/or communications applications. The document has many goals:

• to provide common ground by which contractors, commercial companies, researchers, government program offices, and software maintenance organizations may assess technologies

• to serve as Cliff's Notes for specific software technologies; to encapsulate a large amount of information so that the reader can rapidly read the basics and make a preliminary decision on whether further research is warranted

• to achieve objectivity, balance,² and a quantitative focus, bringing out both shortcomings as well as advantages, and provide insight into areas such as costs, risks, quality, ease of use, security, and alternatives

• to layer information so that readers can find subordinate technology descriptions (where they exist) to learn more about the topic(s) of specific interest, and to provide references to sources of more detailed technical information, to include usage and experience

Follow this link to download the Software Technology Roadmap courtesy of The Software Engineering Institute (2.1 MB pdf)

Common Robotics Software Standards top

Why do we need standards?

The requirement for widely adopted standards for engineering and other disciplines, based on the strong link between standards and competitiveness, is undeniable. The benefits of standards are so universally accepted that many organizations see standardization as a strategic imperative and have dedicated Standardization Management teams in place to develop standards and make sure their products conform to existing standards. For robotics, a complex discipline that involves electrical, mechanical and computer engineering, standards use and conformance is essential. more

For more on the answer to this question read the article "Robotics and the Need for Standards" by Lloyd Spencer.

What is Jaus? top

        JAUS is mandated for use by all of the programs in the Joint Robotics Program (JRP). This initiative is to develop an architecture for the Domain of unmanned systems. JAUS is an upper level design for the interfaces within the domain of Unmanned Ground Vehicles. It is a component based, message-passing architecture that specifies data formats and methods of communication among computing nodes. It defines messages and component behaviors that are independent of technology, computer hardware, operator use, and vehicle platforms and isolated from mission.
read full definition
JAUS Tutorial (2.65 MB ppt)

What is CORBA? top

        CORBA is the acronym for Common Object Request Broker Architecture, OMG's open, vendor-independent architecture and infrastructure that computer applications use to work together over networks. Using the standard protocol IIOP, a CORBA-based program from any vendor, on almost any computer, operating system, programming language, and network, can interoperate with a CORBA-based program from the same or another vendor, on almost any other computer, operating system, programming language, and network.
read full article

1. I’m totally new to CORBA.
2. What is CORBA? What does it do?
3. What is CORBA good for?
4. How about a high-level technical overview?
5. How do remote invocations work?
6. That ORB/Skeleton Architecture on the Server Side doesn't look very scalable. What did you leave out?
7. What is CORBA 2? CORBA 3? What does the version number mean, anyhow?
8. Who is using CORBA already?

What is S.T.E.P? top

        In design and manufacturing, many systems are used to manage technical product data. Each system has its own data formats so the same information has to be entered multiple times into multiple systems leading to redundancy and errors. Over the years many solutions have been proposed. The first ones were national and focused on geometric data exchange. They included SET in France, VDAFS in Germany and the Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) in the USA. Later a grand unifying effort was started under the International Standards Organization (ISO) to produce one International Standard for all aspects of technical product data and named STEP for the Standard for Product Model Data.
read full article

1. What is STEP?
2. The STEP Application Protocols
3. STEP for Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing
4. STEP for CNC Machining
5. Future of STEP
6. What is the STEP Data Access Interface (SDAI)?
7. Fundamentals of STEP Implementation [pdf]
8. Commentary: Moving into Implementation Phase