A Generic Synchronous Dataflow Architecture to Rapidly Prototype and Deploy Robot Controllers
This work addresses the problem of rapid controller development for robotics researchers and engineers, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing model-based design methodologies.
The paper tackles the challenge of prototyping and deploying robot controllers by introducing a generic synchronous dataflow architecture, which includes an open-source framework and pipeline, and demonstrates its effectiveness with a balancing controller for the iCub humanoid robot.
The paper presents a software architecture to optimize the process of prototyping and deploying robot controllers that are synthesized using model-based design methodologies. The architecture is composed of a framework and a pipeline. Therefore, the contribution of the paper is twofold. First, we introduce an open-source actor-oriented framework that abstracts the common robotic uses of middlewares, optimizers, and simulators. Using this framework, we then present a pipeline that implements the model-based design methodology. The components of the proposed framework are generic, and they can be interfaced with any tool supporting model-based design. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach describing the application of the resulting synchronous dataflow architecture to the design of a balancing controller for the YARP-based humanoid robot iCub. This example exploits the interfacing with Simulink and Simulink Coder.