Component-based robot software design for pick-and-place task described by SysML

Recently, many researchers have been focusing on reusable software technology for robot systems. To develop reusable software, robot system developers build module-based software on middleware platforms. However, since each module is built for a specific framework, it is difficult to apply modules to other systems. Therefore, it is of great importance to consider module design when module-based systems are developed. To design a software module, the modeling language acts as a good description and communication tool for simplification of the target system. In this paper, we introduce a module design for building module-based systems by using SysML as the modeling language. We also introduce an example system implemented on RT-Middleware, in which a mobile manipulator is used to grab a target object by using its vision capability. Since this example system was implemented by using the proposed design, it is easy to modify it and add functionality.