Web-based collaborative framework and environment for designing and building robotic systems

Presents a preliminary research effort, on a Web-based collaborative design platform for robotic systems. The issues involved in the development process of (micro) robotic systems are first discussed. Then, a knowledge-server based Web distributed object modeling and evaluation framework (WebDOME) is proposed to enable designers to build concurrent integrated models using both local and distributed resources, and to collaborate by exchanging services based upon the CORBA standard communication protocol. To facilitate the rapid construction of integrated models for robotic system CAD, a prototype Web-based collaborative environment, WebRobot, is implemented under the WebDOME framework with concurrent integration of multiple cooperative knowledge sources and software. The system can provide platform-independent and distributed users access to WebDOME module servers throughout the network over the Internet/intranet and WWW. A case study is provided to demonstrate the functionality of the system and to illustrate how designers in different teams and organizations may participate and collaborate in the design process of robotic systems.