Dealing with Run-Time Variability in Service Robotics: Towards a DSL for Non-Functional Properties
This addresses the challenge of unpredictable environments and limited resources for service robots, but it is incremental as it builds on existing robotics architectures.
The paper tackles the problem of run-time variability in service robotics by introducing a domain-specific language (DSL) to express non-functional properties like safety and efficiency, enabling efficient resolution based on available information, with an example integrated into a robotics architecture.
Service robots act in open-ended, natural environments. Therefore, due to combinatorial explosion of potential situations, it is not possible to foresee all eventualities in advance during robot design. In addition, due to limited resources on a mobile robot, it is not feasible to plan any action on demand. Hence, it is necessary to provide a mechanism to express variability at design-time that can be efficiently resolved on the robot at run-time based on the then available information. In this paper, we introduce a DSL to express run- time variability focused on the execution quality of the robot (in terms of non-functional properties like safety and task efficiency) under changing situations and limited resources. We underpin the applicability of our approach by an example integrated into an overall robotics architecture.