A Robust and Flexible Software Architecture for Autonomous Robots in the Context of Industrie 4.0

The next industrial revolution should allow the production of individually configured items at the cost of a currently mass-produced commodity. To make this possible, autonomous robots play an essential role. These robots use their knowledge about the world and the task as well as sensor information to derive the next action to achieve a common goal. To give research in this area the possibility to test novel methods and algorithms for the next industrial revolution, the RoboCup Logistic League was established. The league uses a small shop floor environment wherein a group of robots has to produce customized goods within a given time-frame.
In this paper, we present a software framework for a group of autonomous robots which deal with the problems of the RoboCup Logistic League. The software is separated into three distinct layers allowing modularity as well as maintainability. The framework provides all the needed functionality starting from creating plans for a fleet of robots, to the hardware skills to detect machines, to move between locations and interact with the physical world. To show the use of the software framework a use-case is presented. This use-case is the exploration of an unknown factory hall with a fleet of autonomous robots. All the presented solutions in this paper were tested in the RoboCup world championship 2016 in Leipzig. There the system showed its robustness and its capability to solve issues arising with the next industrial revolution.