A Graphical Language for Real-Time Critical Robot Commands

A Graphical Language for Real-Time Critical Robot Commands
Andreas Angerer,
Remi Smirra, Alwin Hoffmann, Andreas Schierl, Michael Vistein, Wolfgang Reif

Agenda

1. Motivation – the SoftRobot architecture

2. GSRAPID basics

3. Parameter handling in GSRAPID

4. Conclusion

05.11.2012 A Graphical Language for Real-Time Critical Robot Commands

Software Development for Industrial Robots

Current situation Vision
• Sophisticated mechanical • Apply modern software
components and control engineering to industrial robots
algorithms
• Facilitate robotics software
• High precision, reliability and development by providing
repeatability “robotics” as just another API in
a popular programming
• Specialized, proprietary language (the “Robotics API”)
programming languages and
outdated software concepts • Thus increase reuse and reduce
(e.g. KUKA KRL) development time


The SoftRobot Architecture
Robot Domain-Specific Service-Oriented
Applications Languages Automation
Programming
Application

[Angerer2010]
Robotics API
(standard Java/C#)
Automated
transformation
into real-time
Realtime Primitives Interface dataflow graphs
[Schierl2012]
Robot Control

Robot Control Core
Real-Time

(C++, Linux/RTAI) [Vistein2010]

Robot Hardware

SoftRobot Architecture – Details

• Commands can be combined flexibly
start/stop Command
throw an error
start Java thread
…
state entered
state left

19.05.2011 Oberseminar ISSE - Das Programmiermodell der Robotics API 7


• RPI dataflow graphs are generated at runtime

OrocosRuntime
.load(Command)



• RPI dataflow graphs are generated at runtime

OrocosRuntime
.load(Command)

• Downside: programming Commands is tedious

Refining the Robotics API interface (I)

• Introducing the Activity Layer

Activity Layer
Robotics API
standard Java/C#

Meta Data Activity Actuator Interface

Action Command Actuator

PTP Command Layer Robot
RCC

Calculation Device
C++

Modules Robot Control Core Drivers


Refining the Robotics API interface (II)

• Introducing the GSRAPID Language

Graphical SoftRobot Robotics API Diagram
Robotics API
standard Java/C#

Language

Action Command Actuator

PTP Command Layer Robot
RCC

Calculation Device
C++

Modules Robot Control Core Drivers


What is GSRAPID?

• A graphical language for specifying complex
Robotics API Commands

• Diagrams can be edited, saved/loaded and
syntactically checked

• Integrated code generator: Creates Java code that
instantiates the specified Robotics API Command
=> Command can be used as black-box in Java code

• Realized in Eclipse with GMF (EMF + GEF)

GSRAPID editor layout


GSRAPID editor layout

Diagram
Canvas Tool-
box

Properties
Editor


Basic GSRAPID elements (I)


Basic GSRAPID elements (II)


Parametrization using Property Editor


Dynamic Properties

• Properties are dynamic and
context sensitive

• Java reflection is used to
determine possible sources
of property values (by type)

• Challenge: How to deal with
method arguments?


Property arguments: Primitive types


Property arguments: Recursive method calls

• Arguments for method
parameters can be provided
by further method calls

• Possible methods again
determined by type

• Challenge: How to deal with
“intermediate” types?
E.g.:
lwr.getForceTorqueSensor()
.getForceX()
Returned type
not expected!

Variables as property arguments

• Solution: Treat un-set properties as variables

• All variables have to be set at code level by developers
that use Commands defined with GSRAPID

• Challenge: What about the context of a property
variable?
Again: lwr.getForceTorqueSensor().getForceX()
Exactly this instance of a robot (defined in
the GSRAPID diagram) has to be accessed!

• Solution: The ISetter ”pattern”

Defining ISetters for variables

• Generic interface ISetter:
public interface ISetter<T> {
T set();
}

• Developer has to supply concrete instances of ISetters
that serve as callbacks for setting unresolved variables

• ISetters are called only once the variable‘s context (e.g.
‚lwr‘ in the previous example) has been initialized

• Context is accessible via static fields of the generated class


Conclusion

• GSRAPID is an approach to quickly and intuitively
specify real-time critical Robotics API Commands

• Focus on visualizing Command structure

• Eclipse-based DSL tools proved to be a good platform
– Complex, but flexible and powerful
– GSRAPID was created in a 6-month master thesis!

• First (informal) evaluations of GSRAPID are promising,
yet many improvements possible!

This work presents results of the research
project SoftRobot which was funded by
the European Union and the Bavarian
government. The project was carried out
together with KUKA Laboratories GmbH
and MRK-Systeme GmbH and was kindly
supported by VDI/VDE-IT GmbH

Thank you for your attention!

References

[Angerer2010] Angerer, A.; Hoffmann, A.; Schierl, A.; Vistein, M. & Reif, W.
The Robotics API: An Object-Oriented Framework for Modeling Industrial Robotics Applications
Proc. 2010 IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2010), Taipeh, Taiwan,
IEEE, 2010, 4036-4041

[Vistein2010] Vistein, M.; Angerer, A.; Hoffmann, A.; Schierl, A. & Reif, W.
Interfacing Industrial Robots using Realtime Primitives
Proc. 2010 IEEE Intl. Conf. on Automation and Logistics (ICAL~2010), Hong Kong, China, IEEE,
2010, 468-473

[Schierl2012] Schierl, A.; Angerer, A.; Hoffmann, A.; Vistein, M. & Reif, W.
From Robot Commands To Real-Time Robot Control - Transforming High-Level Robot Commands
into Real-Time Dataflow Graphs
Proc. 2012 Intl. Conf. on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, Rome, Italy, 2012


A Graphical Language for Real-Time Critical Robot Commands

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