A Modular Software Framework for Heterogeneous Reconfigurable Robots

In this paper we present the Symbricator Robot API, a software framework for heterogeneous robot swarms with the ability to aggregate and build modular robotic organisms. This software framework supports different robot types and at the same time hides the complexity of the multi-processor sensor-rich robots to the user. Furthermore, it enables communication and energy sharing amongst swarming and aggregated robots. Based on the development of the Symbrion and Replicator projects, we line out the developed software framework. For application development, we offer a unified expandable software interface for all robot types in order to write swarm and organism controllers without restrictions to the actual underlying hardware

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