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How do you architect your robots?: state of the practice and guidelines for ROS-based systems

Authors:

Ivano Malavolta,

Bradley Schmerl,

David GarlanAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE-SEIP '20: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice

Pages 31 - 40

https://doi.org/10.1145/3377813.3381358

Published: 18 September 2020 Publication History

Abstract

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de-facto standard for robotic software. If on one hand ROS is helping roboticists, e.g., by providing a standardized communication platform, on the other hand ROS-based systems are getting larger and more complex and could benefit from good software architecture practices. This paper presents an observational study aimed at (i) unveiling the state-of-the-practice for architecting ROS-based systems and (ii) providing guidance to roboticists about how to properly architect ROS-based systems. To achieve these goals, we (i) build a dataset of 335 GitHub repositories containing real open-source ROS-based systems, (ii) mine the repositories for extracting the state of the practice about how roboticists are architecting them, and (iii) synthesize a catalog of 49 evidence-based guidelines for architecting ROS-based systems. The guidelines have been validated by 77 roboticists working on real-world open-source ROS-based systems.

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2024.115052
Alberts EGerostathopoulos IMalavolta IHernández Corbato CLago P(2025)Software architecture-based self-adaptation in roboticsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2024.112258219(112258)Online publication date: Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112258
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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE-SEIP '20: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice

June 2020

258 pages

ISBN:9781450371230

DOI:10.1145/3377813

General Chairs:
Gregg Rothermel
North Carolina State University
,
Doo-Hwan Bae
KAIST, South Korea

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 18 September 2020

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ICSE '20: 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering

June 27 - July 19, 2020

Seoul, South Korea

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Cited By

Pittou MRahonis G(2025)An Automata-Based Approach for Addressing Erroneous Behaviors and Deadlocks in Component-Based SystemsTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2024.115052(115052)Online publication date: Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2024.115052
Alberts EGerostathopoulos IMalavolta IHernández Corbato CLago P(2025)Software architecture-based self-adaptation in roboticsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2024.112258219(112258)Online publication date: Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112258
Prochazka JProchazkova D(2024)Present Development of Software for Railway SafetyDESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE10.37394/232022.2024.4.34(19-28)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.37394/232022.2024.4.3
Frisch MBaumgärtner JHeider IPuchta AFleischer J(2024)Efficient Deployment of Machine Learning Models in Manufacturing and Industrial Environments using ROSProcedia CIRP10.1016/j.procir.2024.10.074130(188-193)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2024.10.074
Oruma SColomo-Palacios RGkioulos V(2024)Architectural views for social robots in public spaces: business, system, and security strategiesInternational Journal of Information Security10.1007/s10207-024-00924-x24:1Online publication date: 5-Nov-2024
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Alfadel MCosta DShihab EAdams B(2023)On the Discoverability of npm Vulnerabilities in Node.js ProjectsACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/357184832:4(1-27)Online publication date: 26-May-2023
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Quiña-Mera AFernandez PGarcía JRuiz-Cortés A(2023)GraphQL: A Systematic Mapping StudyACM Computing Surveys10.1145/356181855:10(1-35)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2023
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Song XLi YDong ZLiu SCao JPeng X(2023)An Empirical Study on Fault Diagnosis in Robotic Systems2023 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME58846.2023.00030(207-219)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
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Raudmäe RSchumann SVunder VOidekivi MNigol MValner RMasnavi HSingh AAabloo AKruusamäe K(2023)ROBOTONT – Open-source and ROS-supported omnidirectional mobile robot for education and researchHardwareX10.1016/j.ohx.2023.e0043614(e00436)Online publication date: Jun-2023
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Muñoz Gutiérrez SSteinbauer-Wagner G(2022)The Need for a Meta-Architecture for Robot AutonomyElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science10.4204/EPTCS.362.9362(81-97)Online publication date: 20-Jul-2022
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