Page 446 - Mechatronics for Safety, Security and Dependability in a New Era

Ch86-I044963.fm Page 430 Tuesday, August 1, 2006 5:29 PM
Ch86-I044963.fm
430
430 Page 430 Tuesday, August 1, 2006 5:29 PM
PROPERTY SERVICE ARCHITECTURE

Property Service is a general representation of a network-transparent server that is controlled using
property name value pairs. Property Service provides a simple interface for setting and getting
different values of the device and for activating the operation of the device. Each device contains a
set of properties that can be "get" and "set". Sensors and actuators have standardized properties,
related to the data information they receive and their location. There is also a higher level standard
for the set of properties. For example all mobile robots provide "mobile robot service" properties
that contain properties, for example moving the robot precisely across distances or other functions.
This provides a possibility to use different mobile robots with the same higher level control
software. For example, commanding the robot to "move one meter forward" has the same effect
regardless of robot's size or whether it uses wheels or legs for moving. Each Atomi provides a set of
functionalities, and Property Service combines these into a Property Service. As Atomi modules can
be attached during power up, new devices and their properties show up on the list of properties of
the service immediately. Communication between the head and neck unit and the base computer has
been accomplished with these Property Services, through Ethernet. In current implementation, ICE
is used as middleware software, but Property Service can also be accomplished over other protocols
and physical layer, such as RS232, direct TCP/IP.

DISCUSSION

A robotic platform for human interaction research has been implemented successfully. The modular
parts of the robot can be used separately, which allows easy modifiability. The Atomi concept
provides the great advance of enabling quickly changes of the setup of the robot's parts, as new
Atomi boards can be attached online. The use of Atomi boards also reduced radically the time
needed for the development time of the robot. Power optimization of the mobile robot is essential.
Atomi boards consume much less power in compared to traditional PC cards that are widely used
on robots. Atomi boards can be set to stand-by mode during operation, which reduces the power
requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGE
The outlook of the robot has been designed in cooperation with the Industrial Design Laboratory of
the University of Lapland. This work has been partly funded by the Academy of Finland.

REFERENCES

OOPic (visited 1.5. 2004) web pages, http://www.oopic.com
Tero Vallius, lanne Haverinen, Juha Roning, (2004) Object-Oriented Embedded System
Development Method for Easy and Fast Prototyping, ICMA Osaka, Japan.
Antti Tikanmaki, Jukka Riekki and Juha Roning (2003), Qutie - an interactive mobile robot, 2003
TCAR International Conference on Advanced Robotics, Jun 30 - Jul 4, Coimbra, Portugal.
Microsoft ActiveX Controls, (visitedl 1.3.2004) http://www.microsoft.com/com/tech/ActiveX.asp
Topi Maenpaa, Antti Tikanmaki, Jukka Riekki and Juha Roning (2004) A Distributed Architecture
for Executing Complex Tasks with Multiple Robots, IEEE 2004 ICRA, International Conference on
Robotics and Automation, Apr 26 - May 1, New Orleans, LA, USA.