Development of a Personal Robot Based on Modularization

모듈화 개념의 퍼스널 로봇 플랫폼 개발

If a personal robot is popularized like a personal computer in the future, many kinds of robots will appear and the number of manufacturers will increase as a matter of course. In such circumstances, it can be inefficient, in case each manufacturer makes a whole platform individually. The solutions for this problem are to modularize a robot component (hardware and software) functionally and to standardize each module. Each module is developed and sold by each special maker and a consumer purchases desired modules and integrates them. The standardization of a module includes the unification of electrical and mechanical interface. In this paper, the standard interfaces of modules are proposed and CMR(Component Modularized Robot)-P2 made with the modules(brain, sensor, mobile, arm) is introduced. In order to simplify and to make the modules light, a frame is used for supporting a robot and communication/power lines. The name of a method and the way to use that are defined dependently on the standard interfaces in order to use a module in other modules. Each module consists of a distributed object and that can be implemented in the random language and platform. The sensor, mobile and arm modules are developed on Pentium or ARM CPU and embedded Linux OS using the C programming language. The brain module is developed on Pentium CPU and Windows OS using the C, C++ and RPL(Robot Programming Language). Also tasks like pass planning, localization, moving, object perception and face perception are developed. In our test, modules got into gear and CMR-P2 executed various scenarios like guidance, errand and guarding completely.