A Model-Based Approach for Common Representation and Description of Robotics Software Architectures

Unlike conventional software, robotic software suffers from a lack of methods and processes that could systematize and facilitate development. Thus, the application of software engineering techniques is at the heart of current issues in robotics. The work presented in this paper aims to facilitate the development of robotic software and to facilitate communication between experts in the field through the use of software engineering techniques and methods. It proposes RsaML (Robotic Software Architecture Modeling Language), a Domain Specific Modeling Language (DSML) dedicated to robotics, which takes into account the different categories of robotic software architectures and makes it possible to describe the latter independently from the implementation platform. The conceptual model defining the terminology and the hierarchy of concepts used for the description and representation of robotic software architectures in RsaML are presented in this article. RsaML is defined through a meta-model which represents the abstract syntax of the language. The real-time properties of robotic software architectures are identified and included in the meta-model. The use of RsaML is illustrated through several experimental scenarios of the language: the definition of a robotic system and the description of its software architecture, the verification of the semantics of a robotic software architecture, and the modeling of a robotic system whose software architecture does not belong to the usual categories. The support tool used for implementations and experimentation is Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). The results of experimentation showed good working of the proposed solution and made it possible to validate the main concepts of the RsaML language.