Toward Adaptation and Reuse of Advanced Robotic Software

Abstract — As robotic software systems become larger and more complex, it is increasingly important to reuse existing software components to control development costs. For relatively simple components, such as perception algorithms and actuation interfaces, this is a reasonably straightforward process, and many excellent frameworks have been developed in recent years that support reuse of such components in novel systems. For more advanced software components, such as for modeling and interacting with the robot’s environment, reuse is, however, a more challenging problem. In particular, these advanced algorithms tend to be highly sensitive to the perception and actuation capabilities of the robots they are deployed on, and they often require nontrivial modification to accommodate the specific capabilities of any one robotic system. This work examines the nature of this sensitivity and proposes a novel design methodology for isolating a stable, reusable “core ” algorithm from any platform-specific enhancements, or “supplemental ” effects. Modern software engineering techniques are used to encapsulate these supplemental effects separately from the core algorithm, allowing platform-specific details to be accommodated by modular substitution instead of direct modification of the “core ” component. This methodology is experimentally evaluated on existing software for autonomous driving behaviors, yielding useful insights into the creation of highly adaptable robotic software components. I