PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

eal world objects handling requires a complete robot and sensor system that must be managed by an adequate software architecture. The design of such a complex architecture is important not only to fulfill the hardware and software constraints but also to shorten the development and integration time. This paper presents the lessons learned in the integration of a software architecture based on ROS within the European project HANDLE. It focuses on the major concepts of component-based software engineering intrinsically available in the ROS framework and describes the best practices to take advantage of flexibility, interoperability and reconfigurability of packages offered by the ROS community for real world in-hand manipulation. The paper is divided in three parts. In a first place, the core concepts in the ROS framework are presented, detailing the multi-robot and distributed computing capabilities as well as existing software stacks for object manipulation applications. In a second place, a case study is done on the packages used or developed during HANDLE, alternatively describing the concepts related to component-based design patterns and their application. A last part covers integration choices relative to interfacing of the components, coordination and configuration of them in the final application.