The ESROCOS project has produced a framework to aid in the development of space robotics applications, which have specific needs in terms of Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS). To fulfil this purpose, the ESROCOS framework combines a set of characteristics in a novel way:
- It is built specifically for the needs of the space robotics community, with inputs from the community.
- It is provided under open-source licenses in order to facilitate its adoption.
- It integrates a Time and Space Partitioning hypervisor, which is proposed as a possible way to integrate non-deterministic algorithms in critical systems with real-time constraints.
- It relies on model-based and formal approaches, which are relevant for space and other critical application domains.
- It is compatible with existing, widely-used robotics frameworks.
ESROCOS integrates several existing tools and components, many of which have been improved in the context of the project. ESROCOS is the basis for a live ecosystem that will persist beyond the end of the project.
The project has improved existing tools such as the TASTE framework for model-based software development, the BIP tools for the analysis and validation of real-time software at behaviour level, and the AIR hypervisor for mixed criticality.
In addition, a new tool for modelling robot kinematics has been developed within ESROCOS. This is a first implementation of a new methodology for robotics software development advocating the use of high level models together with automatic code generation, forming a semantically complete specification of the software.
The availability of ESROCOS as open-source software is expected to enable adoption in the space robotics community, and other domains with similar RAMS requirements, in order to create a lively ecosystem of reusable components and tools. The experience in terrestrial robotics shows that such an ecosystem may lower the cost of developing novel robotics systems.
The architecture of ESROCOS provides a path from existing laboratory robotics applications to space-quality software systems. In addition, the open-source and modular solution facilitates the exploitation of the results by SMEs, which are very important in the European space industry.
The ESROCOS framework has been developed within the H2020 Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) on Space Robotics. It is one of the building blocks identified by the European space robotics roadmap, and it is closely aligned with the software engineering methods promoted by the ESA.
At a wider level, the ESROCOS project has also strived to communicate its goals and activities to the robotics community and the general public. By providing an open-source platform to develop new engaging projects, ESROCOS makes possible new robotic applications that may capture the imagination of the general public.
