Software evolution of robot control based on OSGi

Robots always work in a variable environment, so the evolutional ability or robot control software is generally required in order to adapt the changing environment for various tasks. Software should be able to be replaced, changed and updated remotely, reliably and across its whole lifecycle. So far, most robot programs are developed in an ad-hoc way and are encapsulated in a closed software package. This article presents an OSGi[1] based approach for software evolution of robot control. OSGi provides a dynamic, extensible and versatile software platform for dynamic configuration of software components, i.e. bundles. Using its characteristics of dynamic loading, update and reference management, the primitive behaviors of a robot are implemented as different bundles in OSGi and the complex tasks of a robot can be realized by configuration of interactions and co-operations among the bundles through a ManagerBundle. It facilitates control strategy evolution and makes robot software more flexible and extensible. The system is designed for the Middle-Size League in RoboCup[2] and to provide a software evolution framework for convenient and immediate update of match strategies.