Variability modeling of service robots: Experiences and challenges

Sensing, planning, controlling, and reasoning, are human-like capabilities that can be artificially replicated in an autonomous robot. Such a robot implements data structures and algorithms devised on a large spectrum of theories, from probability theory, mechanics, and control theory to ethology, economy, and cognitive sciences. Software plays a key role in the development of robotic systems, as it is the medium to embody intelligence in the machine. During the last years, however, software development is increasingly becoming the bottleneck of robotic systems engineering due to three factors: (a) the software development is mostly based on community efforts and it is not coordinated by key stakeholders; (b) robotic technologies are characterized by a high variability that makes reuse of software a challenging practice; and (c) robotics developers are usually not specifically trained in software engineering. In this paper, we illustrate our experiences from EU, academic, and industrial projects in identifying, modeling, and managing variability in the domain of service robots. We hope to raise awareness for the specific variability challenges in robotics software engineering and to inspire other researchers to advance this field.