EVALUATION OF COMMUNICATION MIDDLEWARE IN A DISTRIBUTED HUMANOID ROBOT ARCHITECTURE

• US 20090105879A1
• Filed: 10/16/2008
• Published: 04/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Communicative Machines Incorporated, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Communicative Machines Incorporated
• Inventors: Wormer, Joel, Thorisson, Kristinn R., List, Thor, Ng-Thow-Hing, Victor
• Granted Patent: US 9,079,306 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/245
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1656 characterised by programming, planning systems for manipulators
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/33149 Publisher subscriber, publisher, master broadcasts data to slaves, subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39251 Autonomous distributed control, joint and link is a subsystem, communication intensive
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39252 Autonomous distributed control, task distributed into each subsystem, task space
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/043 Distributed expert systems; Blackboards

Abstract

A publish-subscribe architecture based blackboard system for selecting and exchanging selected information among a plurality of processing modules using filters for implementing conditions described in a procedural language to reduce the amount of information transmitted between the processing modules. More than one filter may be dynamically installed in a message hub to select and collect the published information to be sent to a certain subscribing module. By using the procedural language to describe the filters, the message hub can more intelligently select the information to be sent to the subscribing module. This reduces the amount of information transmitted via communication channels. Further, the subscribing module may be relieved from the task of filtering the information received from the message hub, allowing the subscribing module to devote more resources to other operations.

Claims

1. A distributed system based on a publish-subscribe architecture for controlling a robot, comprising:

a plurality of publishing modules configured to generate information for sharing with other modules;

a first subscribing module configured to generate a first output for performing a first task in the robot based on the information generated by the plurality of the publishing models;

a second subscribing module configured to generate a second output for performing a second task in the robot based on the information generated by the plurality of the publishing models; and

a message hub configured to receive and store the information generated by the plurality of publishing modules, the message hub comprising filters configured to select a first subset of the information matching a first condition and a second subset of the information matching a second condition, the first condition and the second condition described in a procedural language, the message hub configured to send the first subset of the information to the first subscribing module and the second subset of the information to the second subscribing module.

2. The distributed system of claim 1, wherein the procedural language comprises a scripting language.

3. The distributed system of claim 1, wherein the message hub further comprises a blackboard manager for classifying and indexing the received information into first type of information and second type of information.

4. The distributed system of claim 3, wherein the message hub further comprises a first shared memory for storing the first type of information, and a second shared memory for storing the second type of information.

5. The distributed system of claim 1, wherein the message hub further comprises a filter management module configured to install a filter based on a filter definition received from the first subscribing module or the second subscribing module.

6. The distributed system of claim 5, wherein the message hub further comprises a blackboard manager for classifying and indexing the received information, the blackboard manager installing an indexer corresponding to the filter responsive to receiving the filter definition.

7. The distributed system of claim 1, wherein communication between the plurality of publishing module, the message hub, the first subscribing module, and the second subscribing module is performed by messages that are instantiated from extensible classes.

8. The distributed system of claim 1, wherein the message hub configured to change the first condition responsive to receiving a request for the first subscribing module.

9. A method for controlling a robot using a message hub in a distributed system, the distributed system based on a publish-subscribe architecture, comprising:

receiving information for sharing from a plurality of publishing modules to a message hub;

selecting a first subset of the information matching a first condition, the first condition described in a procedural language;

selecting a second subset of the information matching a second condition, the second condition described in the procedural language;

sending the first subset of the information to a first subscribing module for generating a first output associated with performing a first task; and

sending the second subset of the information to a second subscribing module for generating a second output associated with performing a second task.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the procedural language comprises a scripting language.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising classifying and indexing the information into first type of information for storing in a first shared memory of the message hub and second type of information for storing in a second shared memory of the message hub.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a filter definition from a first subscribing module; and

generating a filter based on the filter definition for selecting the first subset of the information.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising generating an indexer corresponding to the filter responsive to receiving the filter definition, the filter configured to classify and index the information for sharing.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising changing the first condition responsive to receiving a request from the first subscribing module.

15. A computer readable storage medium structured to store instructions executable by a processor in a message hub to control a robot using a distributed system based on a publish-subscribe architecture, the instructions, when executed cause the processor to:

receive information for sharing from a plurality of publishing modules;

select a first subset of the information matching a first condition, the first condition described in a procedural language;

select a second subset of the information matching a second condition described in the procedural language;

send the first subset of the information to a first subscribing module for generating a first output associated with performing a first task; and

send the second subset of the information to a second subscribing module for generating a second output associated with performing a second task.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the procedural language comprises a scripting language.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions to classify and index the information into first type of information for storing in a first shared memory of the message hub and second type of information for storing in a second shared memory of the message hub.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions to:

receive a filter definition from a first subscribing module; and

generate a filter based on the filter definition for selecting the first subset of the information.

19. The distributed system of claim 18, further comprising instructions to install an indexer corresponding to the filter responsive to receiving the filter definition on the message hub, the indexer classifying and indexing the received information on the message hub.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising instructions to change configurations of the filter to modify the first condition responsive to receiving a request from the first subscribing module.