PROACTIVE COMPUTING PARADIGM APPLIED TO THE PROGRAMMING OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS

This doctoral thesis is concerned with the development of advanced software
for robotic systems, an area still in its experimental infancy, lacking essential
methodologies from generic software engineering. A significant challenge
within this domain is the absence of a well-established separation of concerns
from the design phase. This deficiency is exemplified by Navigation 2, a realworld
reference application for (semi-) autonomous robot journeys developed
for and on top of the Robot Operating System (ROS): the project’s leading
researchers encountered difficulties in maintaining and evolving their
complex software, even for supposed-to-be straightforward new functions,
leading to a halt in further development. In response, this thesis first presents
an alternative design and implementation approach that not only rectifies the
issues but also elevates the programming level of consistent robot behaviors.
By leveraging the proactive computing paradigm, our dedicated software
engineering model provides programmers with enhanced code extension,
reusability and maintenance capabilities. Furthermore, a key advantage of
the model lies in its dynamic adaptability via on-the-fly strategy change in
decision-making. Second, in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation
of the two systems, an exhaustive comparative study between Navigation 2
and the same application implemented along the lines of our model, is conducted.
This study covers thorough assessments at both compile-time and
runtime. Software metrics such as coupling, lack of cohesion, complexity,
and various size measures are employed to quantify and visualize code quality
and efficiency attributes. The CodeMR software tool aids in visualizing
these metrics, while runtime analysis involves monitoring CPU and memory
usage through the Datadog monitoring software. Preliminary findings
indicate that our implementation either matches or surpasses Navigation 2’s
performance while simultaneously enhancing code structure and simplifying
modifications and extensions of the code base.