A Model-driven and role-oriented approach to software deployment in robotics

Abstract:
Deploying robotics software into a physical setup can be challenging due to complex Hardware-software paring and manual and error-prone deployment artifacts creation. The purpose of the deployment process in the robotics software development lifecycle is to provide end-users with reliable and ready-to-use software, which has been correctly configured for robots in the real world. To cope with these challenges, we leverage the benefits of model-driven engineering (MDE) approaches by modeling the deployment process with the principle of the separation of concerns. We propose a solution with a set of metamodels implemented as Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs). Our solution aims to guide stakeholders through a formalized deployment process. Moreover, our solution provides reliable and consistent deployment artifact generation and integrates self-validation and cross-validation mechanisms. In addition, our solution can be combined with a MDE solution for the composition and build of systems, which ensures consistency and traceability. The advantages of our approach are exemplified by experiments of deploying a pick-and-place application to different physical setups.