Software architectures for robotic systems: A systematic mapping study

Context: Several research efforts have been targeted to support architecture centric development and evolution of software for robotic systems for the last two decades. Objective: We aimed to systematically identify and classify the existing solutions, research progress and directions that influence architecture-driven modeling, development and evolution of robotic software. Research Method: We have used Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) method for identifying and analyzing 56 peer-reviewed papers. Our review has (i) taxonomically classified the existing research and (ii) systematically mapped the solutions, frameworks, notations and evaluation methods to highlight the role of software architecture in robotic systems. Results and Conclusions: We have identified eight themes that support architectural solutions to enable (i) operations, (ii) evolution and (iii) development specific activities of robotic software. The research in this area has progressed from object-oriented to component-based and now to service-driven robotics representing different architectural models that emerged overtime. An emerging solution is cloud robotics that exploits the foundations of service-driven architectures to support an interconnected web of robots. The results of this SMS facilitate knowledge transfer- benefiting researchers and practitioners- focused on exploiting software architecture to model, develop and evolve robotic systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.