Trends in Component-Based Robotics

Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) is an approach that has arisen in the software engineering community in the last decade. It aims to shift the emphasis in system-building from traditional programming to composing software systems from a mixture of off-the-shelf and custom-built components [Cas00, HC01, Szy02, DW98, CC01]. Component-Based Software Engineering is said to be primarily concerned with three functions [HC01]: 1. Developing software from pre-produced parts 2. The ability to reuse those parts in other applications 3. Easily maintaining and customizing those parts to produce new functions and features