A modular, layered client-server control architecture for autonomous mobile robots

The task of implementing intelligent control in autonomous mobile robots is a tough one. Often, one wants to reuse parts of other implementations but these are usually too hardware-specific to be transferred to a different platform. By applying well-known software engineering principles, the authors arrive at a modular, layered client server based architecture for controlling autonomous mobile robots. In this paper, they present the most important concepts underlying their development. Special care is taken of the integration of a wireless communication link relying on DECT, the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication system. Their approach gives better reusability, portability, testability and maintainability through data abstraction. It was successfully applied in their experimental platform ARS.