Middleware for Robots?

Intelligent Distributed and Embedded Systems

Volume

Papers from the 2002 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

Robotic systems, particularly those involving multiple robots and sensors, are increasingly distributed and beterogeneous. We ask the question whether middleware can be used to build these systems, to alleviate unnecessary complexities of using low-level tools while still preserving necessary levels of system performance. We motivate the answer to that question with preliminary performance studies of a particular open-source middleware implementation, and pose additional open questions to further explore the suitability of middleware in building distributed robotics systems.