Applying model-based principles on a distributed robotic system application

Although robotic systems with a high amount of actuators, sensors and software-algorithms involve software development that is usually not trivial, model-based methods are rarely used. This paper presents the entire workflow, supporting the development steps from concept specifications to implementation of distributed robotic system, which are developed model-based with Matlab/ Simulink. Different ARM based target platforms, such as the Raspberry Pi, the robot RobotinoXT, Kinect and SensorTag to realize sensors, actuators and a particle filter are used. The distributed system that consist of four computers is modelled in four Simulink models. The communication with each other and with the components takes places via UDP. The implementation of a preprocessing for the integration of the components and the development of Simulink blocks is necessary. This paper presents and evaluates the distributed approach in robotic systems, as well as its development with Matlab/ Simulink.