Interoperability in Open Heterogeneous Multirobot Systems

Abstract

An approach to the problem of interoperability in open and heterogeneous multirobot systems is presented. It is based on the paradigm of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and a generic representation of the environment. Robot, and gener-ally device, is seen as a collection of its capabilities exposed as services. The representation of environment is used to de-fine tasks, and service interfaces. Several protocols are pro-posed to enable interoperability among the services in order to publish, discover, compose services, and execute the com-posite services. The representation, language for task defini-tion, and language for service interface definition, as well as the protocols constitute together an information technology for automatic task accomplishment in open system consisting of heterogeneous devices (robots).