EmSBoT: A lightweight modular software framework for networked robotic systems

Developing applications for modern complex networked robotic systems is more challenging due to the introduction of possibly sophisticated communication and coordination aspects. In this paper, we propose EmSBoT, a lightweight embedded component-based software framework targeting resource-constrained networked robotic systems. EmSBoT provides a unified Application Program Interface (API) that hides the heterogeneous distributed environment from applications. Its OS abstraction layer endows it with OS independence and portability. A port-based communication mechanism is adopted to exchange message between loosely coupled components, making the system with fault-tolerance capability. By isolating the communication channels as separate agents, the framework provides uniform and transparent message-passing for agents over node boundaries. We describe the architecture, programming model and core features of EmSBoT in this paper, together with the performance evaluation and behavior validation to demonstrate its efficiency and feasibility.