Robotic frameworks, architectures and middleware comparison

Nowadays, the construction of a complex robotic system requires a high level of specialization in a large number of diverse scientific areas. It is reasonable that a single researcher cannot create from scratch the entirety of this system, as it is impossible for him to have the necessary skills in the necessary fields. This obstacle is being surpassed with the existent robotic frameworks. This paper tries to give an extensive review of the most famous robotic frameworks and middleware, as well as to provide the means to effortlessly compare them. Additionally, we try to investigate the differences between the definitions of a robotic framework, a robotic middleware and a robotic architecture.

Metric Map Merging using RFID Tags & Topological Information

A map merging component is crucial for the proper functionality of a multi-robot system performing exploration, since it provides the means to integrate and distribute the most important information carried by the agents: the explored-covered space and its exact (depending on the SLAM accuracy) morphology. Map merging is a prerequisite for an intelligent multi-robot team aiming to deploy a smart exploration technique. In the current work, a metric map merging approach based on environmental information is proposed, in conjunction with spatially scattered RFID tags localization. This approach is divided into the following parts: the maps approximate rotation calculation via the obstacles poses and localized RFID tags, the translation employing the best localized common RFID tag and finally the transformation refinement using an ICP algorithm.