A Modular Software Architecture for Heterogeneous Robot Tasks

Abstract

Swarthmore's entries to this year's AAAI Mobile Robot competition won second place in the Urban Search and Rescue event and Third Place in the Robot Host competition. This article describes the features of Frodo and Rose, the two-robot team, and discusses their performance. The most important design feature that made the robots successful was a modular software design and communication interface that allowed for the use of the same fundamental software in three different robot tasks requiring both autonomous and semi-autonomous modes.