RTM-TECS: Collaboration Framework for Robot Technology Middleware and Embedded Component System

Robot technologies, such as robot technology middleware (RTM) that is a component-oriented platform, are popular. However, RTM does not ensure stable real-time processing in common object request broker architecture. In this paper, a collaboration framework of RTM and TOPPERS embedded component system (TECS) is proposed to address this problem. TECS, a system that satisfies real-time processing requirements, is employed to enhance real-time processing in the proposed framework. To implement the collaboration of RTM and TECS, we have adopted remote procedure call and one-way communication. In addition, extending a generator enables the generation of robot technology components from TECS components. We have evaluated the processor cycle counts of the proposed framework in comparison with those of a conventional method. In addition, we evaluated the execution time of serial communication and a motor application using the proposed framework. The evaluation results show that the proposed framework is functionally employed in a hard real-time system. Furthermore, we evaluated the amount of code generated by the proposed framework. The evaluation results reveal that the code generated by the proposed framework is reusable and can enhance productivity.