Design choices for modular and flexible robotic software development: the OpenRDK viewpoint

Developing reliable robotics applications is a difficult and resource-consuming task. The scientific community is undertaking several initiatives to devise standard design techniques, and the deployment of reusable and interoperable components. At this point in time, a variety of approaches for robotic software development have been proposed, due to the wide range of domains where robotsare used, the many forms and functions that a robot can have, and the diversity of people involved in robotics. Specifically, we focus on modularity and rapid development of distributed robotic systems. First, we survey the main issues in developing software frameworks for robotics, and we briefly discuss existent approaches, highlighting their goals, advantages and weaknesses. Then, we addressthe most significant design choices that arise in the implementation of robotic software and motivate the specific approach taken in OpenRDK, a software framework developed in our laboratory. Finally, we describe how the flexibility of OpenRDK allows to develop robotic applications using different paradigms. In conclusion, we argue that the specific point in design space provided by OpenRDK can be successful for a significant class of robotic software development efforts.