Special Session: Embedded Software for Robotics: Challenges and Future Directions

This paper surveys recent challenges and solutions in the design, implementation, and verification of embedded software for robotics. Emphasis is placed on mobile robots, like self-driving cars. In design, it addresses programming support for robotic systems, secure state estimation, and ROS-based monitor generation. In the implementation phase, it describes the synthesis of control software using finite precision arithmetic, real-time platforms and architectures for safety-critical robotics, efficient implementation of neural network based-controllers, and standards for computer vision applications. The issues in verification include verification of neural network-based robotic controllers, and falsification of closed-loop control systems. The paper also describes notable open-source robotic platforms. Along the way, we highlight important research problems for developing the next generation of high-performance, low-resource-usage, correct embedded software.