Web Services based integration architecture for heterogeneous and distributed systems: application to interactive mobile robots

Development of complex robotics systems usually requires tools and software frameworks such as the WillowGarage Robot Operating System (ROS) to ease code integration and reuse tasks. Nevertheless, research in robotics is increasingly becoming multidisciplinary, involving areas of voice technology, artificial intelligence or web systems, which can make researchers highly reluctant to use such robotic-specific systems. Even existing constraints, such as using different Operating Systems, can make this task impossible. This paper presents a novel architecture completely based on standards such as Web Services, that allows a totally decoupled development of agents with minimal intrusiveness and high simplicity by using a dynamic broker to interconnect agents at runtime. This architecture, which does not replace other systems but complements them. It has been used successfully inside a complex multi-robot demonstrator in a fully automated system deployment of an interactive tour guide robot in a new environment.