Mining guidelines for architecting robotics software

Ivano Malavolta; Grace A. Lewis; Bradley Schmerl; Patricia Lago; David Garlan

doi:10.1016/j.jss.2021.110969

Mining guidelines for architecting robotics software

Ivano Malavolta^*
, Grace A. Lewis
, Bradley Schmerl
, Patricia Lago
, David Garlan

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Context: The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de-facto standard for robotics software. However, ROS-based systems are getting larger and more complex and could benefit from good software architecture practices. Goal: We aim at (i) unveiling the state-of-the-practice in terms of targeted quality attributes and architecture documentation in ROS-based systems, and (ii) providing empirically-grounded guidance to roboticists about how to properly architect ROS-based systems. Methods: We designed and conducted an observational study where we (i) built a dataset of 335 GitHub repositories containing real open-source ROS-based systems, and (ii) mined the repositories to extract and synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about how roboticists are architecting ROS-based systems. Results: First, we extracted an empirically-grounded overview of the state of the practice for architecting and documenting ROS-based systems. Second, we synthesized a catalog of 47 architecting guidelines for ROS-based systems. Third, the extracted guidelines were validated by 119 roboticists working on real-world open-source ROS-based systems. Conclusion: Roboticists can use our architecting guidelines for applying good design principles to develop robots that meet quality requirements, and researchers can use our results as evidence-based indications about how real-world ROS systems are architected today, thus inspiring future research contributions.

Original language	English
Article number	110969
Pages (from-to)	1-33
Number of pages	33
Journal	Journal of Systems and Software
Volume	178
Early online date	3 May 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2021.110969
Publication status	Published - Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is partially supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), The Netherlands through the OCENW.XS2.038 grant. This research is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense, USA under Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0002 with Carnegie Mellon University, USA for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center ( DM19-0986 ), and on research sponsored by AFRL and DARPA under agreement number FA8750-16-2-0042. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the AFRL, DARPA or the U.S. Government. We would also like to thank Jarrett Holtz and Selva Samuel for their comments on parts of this paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Funding

This research is partially supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), The Netherlands through the OCENW.XS2.038 grant. This research is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense, USA under Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0002 with Carnegie Mellon University, USA for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center ( DM19-0986 ), and on research sponsored by AFRL and DARPA under agreement number FA8750-16-2-0042. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the AFRL, DARPA or the U.S. Government. We would also like to thank Jarrett Holtz and Selva Samuel for their comments on parts of this paper.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals

Keywords

Robotics
ROS
Software architecture

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jss.2021.110969

Persistent URL (handle)

Persistent link

Cite this

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title = "Mining guidelines for architecting robotics software",

abstract = "Context: The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de-facto standard for robotics software. However, ROS-based systems are getting larger and more complex and could benefit from good software architecture practices. Goal: We aim at (i) unveiling the state-of-the-practice in terms of targeted quality attributes and architecture documentation in ROS-based systems, and (ii) providing empirically-grounded guidance to roboticists about how to properly architect ROS-based systems. Methods: We designed and conducted an observational study where we (i) built a dataset of 335 GitHub repositories containing real open-source ROS-based systems, and (ii) mined the repositories to extract and synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about how roboticists are architecting ROS-based systems. Results: First, we extracted an empirically-grounded overview of the state of the practice for architecting and documenting ROS-based systems. Second, we synthesized a catalog of 47 architecting guidelines for ROS-based systems. Third, the extracted guidelines were validated by 119 roboticists working on real-world open-source ROS-based systems. Conclusion: Roboticists can use our architecting guidelines for applying good design principles to develop robots that meet quality requirements, and researchers can use our results as evidence-based indications about how real-world ROS systems are architected today, thus inspiring future research contributions.",

keywords = "Robotics, ROS, Software architecture",

author = "Ivano Malavolta and Lewis, \{Grace A.\} and Bradley Schmerl and Patricia Lago and David Garlan",

note = "Funding Information: This research is partially supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), The Netherlands through the OCENW.XS2.038 grant. This research is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense, USA under Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0002 with Carnegie Mellon University, USA for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center ( DM19-0986 ), and on research sponsored by AFRL and DARPA under agreement number FA8750-16-2-0042. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the AFRL, DARPA or the U.S. Government. We would also like to thank Jarrett Holtz and Selva Samuel for their comments on parts of this paper. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Author(s) Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2021",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1016/j.jss.2021.110969",

language = "English",

volume = "178",

pages = "1--33",

journal = "Journal of Systems and Software",

issn = "0164-1212",

publisher = "Elsevier Inc.",

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T1 - Mining guidelines for architecting robotics software

AU - Malavolta, Ivano

AU - Lewis, Grace A.

AU - Schmerl, Bradley

AU - Lago, Patricia

AU - Garlan, David

N1 - Funding Information: This research is partially supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), The Netherlands through the OCENW.XS2.038 grant. This research is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense, USA under Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0002 with Carnegie Mellon University, USA for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center ( DM19-0986 ), and on research sponsored by AFRL and DARPA under agreement number FA8750-16-2-0042. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the AFRL, DARPA or the U.S. Government. We would also like to thank Jarrett Holtz and Selva Samuel for their comments on parts of this paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s) Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/8

Y1 - 2021/8

N2 - Context: The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de-facto standard for robotics software. However, ROS-based systems are getting larger and more complex and could benefit from good software architecture practices. Goal: We aim at (i) unveiling the state-of-the-practice in terms of targeted quality attributes and architecture documentation in ROS-based systems, and (ii) providing empirically-grounded guidance to roboticists about how to properly architect ROS-based systems. Methods: We designed and conducted an observational study where we (i) built a dataset of 335 GitHub repositories containing real open-source ROS-based systems, and (ii) mined the repositories to extract and synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about how roboticists are architecting ROS-based systems. Results: First, we extracted an empirically-grounded overview of the state of the practice for architecting and documenting ROS-based systems. Second, we synthesized a catalog of 47 architecting guidelines for ROS-based systems. Third, the extracted guidelines were validated by 119 roboticists working on real-world open-source ROS-based systems. Conclusion: Roboticists can use our architecting guidelines for applying good design principles to develop robots that meet quality requirements, and researchers can use our results as evidence-based indications about how real-world ROS systems are architected today, thus inspiring future research contributions.

AB - Context: The Robot Operating System (ROS) is the de-facto standard for robotics software. However, ROS-based systems are getting larger and more complex and could benefit from good software architecture practices. Goal: We aim at (i) unveiling the state-of-the-practice in terms of targeted quality attributes and architecture documentation in ROS-based systems, and (ii) providing empirically-grounded guidance to roboticists about how to properly architect ROS-based systems. Methods: We designed and conducted an observational study where we (i) built a dataset of 335 GitHub repositories containing real open-source ROS-based systems, and (ii) mined the repositories to extract and synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings about how roboticists are architecting ROS-based systems. Results: First, we extracted an empirically-grounded overview of the state of the practice for architecting and documenting ROS-based systems. Second, we synthesized a catalog of 47 architecting guidelines for ROS-based systems. Third, the extracted guidelines were validated by 119 roboticists working on real-world open-source ROS-based systems. Conclusion: Roboticists can use our architecting guidelines for applying good design principles to develop robots that meet quality requirements, and researchers can use our results as evidence-based indications about how real-world ROS systems are architected today, thus inspiring future research contributions.

KW - Robotics

KW - ROS

KW - Software architecture

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DO - 10.1016/j.jss.2021.110969

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SP - 1

EP - 33

JO - Journal of Systems and Software

JF - Journal of Systems and Software

M1 - 110969

ER -

Mining guidelines for architecting robotics software

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

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Cite this