A flexible software architecture for multi-modal service robots

In this paper we propose a novel concept for the programming of multi-modal service robots. The presented software architecture eases the development of high-level applications for service robots. The software architecture is based upon the roblet-technology, which is a powerful medium for robots. It introduces the possibility to develop, compile and execute an application on one workstation. Since the roblet-technology uses Java the development is independent of the operation system. With the feature of running programs as a distributed software, the framework allows running algorithms which need great computation power on different machines which provide this power. In this way, it greatly improves programming and testing of applications in service robotics. The concept is evaluated in the context of the service robot TASER of the TAMS Institute at the University of Hamburg. This robot consists of a mobile platform with two manipulators equipped with artificial hands. Several multimodal input and output devices for interaction round off the robot