Client-server based mobile robot control

Summary form only given as follows. Autonomous mobile robots are expected to be a solution for a vast of applications. As different and manifold as the applications are the sensors and control mechanisms used for today's robots. The kind of control architecture and mechanisms used for the mobile robots therefore strongly differ from application to application. Common to all application fields are the tight requirements for real-time reaction that directly influence the used control mechanisms. We present the concepts used to design a mobile robot that robustly performs transportation tasks in an industry-like environment. An intra-robot communication architecture is presented that forms the basis for a robust control architecture by providing efficient access to sensors and actuators. For the test of the developed communication and control architecture the mobile robot ARS (autonomous robot system) is used in this project. ARS is a chain-driven mobile robot with several sensor system modules and a PC running the real-time operating system QNX. Therefore we developed a modular, layered client-server architecture that supports the tight bindings between the sensors and actuators on the one hand, and the actual robot control processes on the other hand. The layering in this architecture approach provides abstraction from the underlying communication mechanisms of the hardware so that the access to sensors and actuators can be easily exchanged without the need to reprogram modules in outer layers. The modularity allows the addition and exchange of modules and components so that they can be used for a broad variety of mobile platforms.