Development of Mobile Robots Using Off-the-Shelf Open-Source Hardware and Software Components for Motion and Pose Tracking

Abstract

Robot development could benefit from reuse of hardware and software components. One of the most successful example is the Robot Operating System (ROS), which aims at supporting robot development and research in robotics by providing a modular and general purpose software framework; yet, at a lower level, i.e., mechanics, electronics, and firmware, component-based robotics is still in its early stages. Moreover, basic functionalities, such as robust odometry and pose tracking, seem to be solved on an ad-hoc basis, while no generic solution can be plugged in a system as an off-the-shelf component. This paper presents two modular tools for the development of robotics applications and how these can be deployed on different robot platforms as off-the-shelf, open hardware and open software, components at the hardware, firmware, and core software levels. A case study based on two mobile platforms is described showing how it is possible to reuse physical components in the building of a mobile robot and provide an off-the-shelf architecture which sports multi-sensor fusion for robust odometry and pose tracking, requiring a fraction of the effort with respect to ad hoc techniques.