ROBODIS: A dispatching system for multiple autonomous service robots

Abstract

A web-based dispatching system for autonomous mobile service robots is presented. The system is composed of an extensible number of physical and software components. They represent and control objects like robots, doors, cameras and elevators or software components like a job scheduler and a database manager. Components communicate via radio link and Ethernet. Autonomously operating components and additional security features result in an adaptable, highly available, multi user/multi service system. In contrast to other web-based systems the mobile robots act really autonomously and are not teleoperated by users. 1 Introduction RoboDis is the rst web-based dispatching system for multiple autonomous service robots executing transport jobs. Since J. Engelberger 1993 presented the rst commercial service robot HelpMate [1], such robots gained increasing interest. Meanwhile there is a number of different robot platforms available. The transport jobs for these platforms are either entere...