Design Implications for Networked Controllers using Web Standards in Cloud Robotics

Computation, networking and controls are in the midst of a true transformation. Previously it was assumed that delays in network communication would inhibit control systems from leveraging networked resources such as remote compute power. Now, industrial and residential applications of the Internet of Things force us to revisit principled deployment and support of distributed sensing and actuation. Web standards provide key resources in the development and support of flexible distributed systems, however the conventional wisdom is that their use adds to the network delay and uncertainty, and makes a difficult control problem intractable. We quantify the effect of an important set of web standards (both formal and informal) in the control of physical systems. The results reported in this paper indicate that although the use of web standards provides an effective path to flexible implementation of distributed control, there are software design choices that impact the observed performance in significant ways.