Abstract
Robot development is a highly complex and interdisciplinary process. It comprises several phases: design, implementation, as well as test and validation to name some of them. In test and validation, simulation is commonly used. However, experiments with real robots still have a very important role since simulations cannot accurately model the real environment and, as a result, produce inconclusive results [1]. Performing robotic experiments, however, is considerably tedious. It is a repetitive process consisting of several steps: setup, execution, data logging, monitoring, and analysis. Moreover, it also requires a lot of resources especially in the case of experiments in multi-robotics.
We have designed a system that can ease the tasks of performing experiments with single or multi minirobots, called the Teleworkbench [2]. The aim of the system is to provide a standard environment in which algorithms and programs can be tested and validated using real robots. As they run in a standardized environment, benchmarking in robotics can be achieved. Also there are several reasons to choose minirobots: the small-size, low-complexity, and low-cost to name a few. Moreover, it is easy to scale up developed solutions for minirobots to larger platforms or to scale them down to micro-mechanical systems (MEMS).
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Notes
- 1.
SOAP used to stand for Simple Object Access Protocol. However, starting from SOAP version 1.2 standards [10], this acronym is no longer used because it was considered misleading.
- 2.
The GUI implements the first three layers: Socket Communication Layer, Teleworkbench Communication Protocol Layer, and Robot Specific Layer.
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Tanoto, A., Rückert, U., Witkowski, U. (2009). Teleworkbench: A Teleoperated Platform for Experiments in Multi-robotics. In: Tzafestas, S. (eds) Web-Based Control and Robotics Education. Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, vol 38. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2505-0_12
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