A novel model-based approach to support development cycle of robotic arm applications

Abstract

The robotic-manipulator has, as aim, the integration of robots into people's quotidian issues. To this purpose, there are a great number of physical devices, such as sensors, actuators, auxiliary elements, tools. which can be incorporated into a robot. That is why integration, reuse, flexibility and adaptability are crucial characteristics demanded by current robotic applications. Using Model Driven Engineering (MDE) software development methodology that promotes an intensive use of models-systems' abstractions-, the complexity inherent to the robotic application design can be reduced. This work explores the advantages of the use of (MDE) to provide support to development cycle of such type of applications. So, in this paper, a modeling approach, where the model is the key concept, is developed to generate automatically the target code. In addition, using this concept, the design of the robotic-arm application could be done independently of robotics' communication middleware.