RMS: A Robot Management System – Management of robots and users, rapid prototyping of robotic applications and assignment of resources

Abstract:
Research, development and education in field of robotics require rapid prototyping of complex technical systems. These systems typically consist of various robots, sensors and human-machine interfaces. The Robot Operation System (ROS) enables the combination of all these technologies by providing a communication infrastructure for the interaction between processes of robotic applications. In ROS-based projects the management of multiple robots of different types, different sensors and human-machine interfaces is an extensive task that requires a lot of time in development. This paper describes the Robot Management System (RMS) that enables rapid prototyping of robotic projects and the management of different robots. The management includes the handling of a large amount of available resources such as robots. By abstracting the real robots, it is possible to access them without knowing details such as communication addresses. In addition, the management also implements the assignment of these resources to multiple users. Users can easily access the robots to solve different tasks at the same time and on the same test bed.