CORBA based Middleware for Cooperating Mobile Robots

Abstract

An embedded system is an autonomous information processing system that determines or controls to a large extent the behaviour of a larger system. The proliferation of embedded systems applications is increasing daily, yet most implementations are largely proprietary and utilise very few existing software standards in implementing their external interfaces. For a particular class of embedded system, those in use in mobile environments, the use of wireless communications protocols is a fundamental requirement. The aim of this research is to investigate the applicability of the Object Management Group?s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) to designing and implementing middleware (ORBs) to present interfaces to embedded systems. The CORBA standard enables the construction of distributed systems of multiple components with complex interactions and hence supports the building of distributed architectures modelling real-world systems. The project also uses a wireless protocol to assess the suitability of CORBA to embedded systems that operate in mobile environments. The applicability of the CORBA standard is assessed with a canonical application utilising the Lego Mindstorms Robotics kit. Having designed and built the test system outlined above, the suitability of the utilised technologies to the project environment, and hence to that of embedded systems in mobile environments, is assessed. Conclusions are drawn as to system performance and robustness as well as exploration of potential shortcomings of the design and scope for further research.