Distributed Image Processing System Using the RT-Middleware Framework

In conventional robot system development the different robot parts (sensors, processing elements, actuators) are combined together in a compact, self contained system. The need for faster development, system reconfigurability and flexibility required the introduction of middleware frameworks for robot systems. One promising middleware framework is the RT-middleware technology (and its implementation named OpenRTM-aist), which is getting more and more popular in robot system design. Vision sensors are one of the most important sensors in robot systems. When constructing a new robot system, it is desirable that vision and image processing components are just as easily integrated as any other robot components. Unfortunately, RT- Middleware is not yet equipped with such RT-Components. This need can be satisfied by introducing a new image processing toolbox, directly obtained from DIMAN, a existing software previously developed by the authors. DIMAN is a distributed framework for image processing, with a modular architecture very similar to RT-middleware. The modules of DIMAN satisfy the needs of robot systems with respect to vision related tasks. This paper will show how the modules of DIMAN can be deployed in RT-Components, and as such, directly integrated into RT-Middleware based robot systems.