Modularization of Domain-Specific Languages for Extensible Component-Based Robotic Systems

The development of robotics systems requires a coherent design, implementation and integration of multiple domain-specific software artifacts that provide the application-specific capabilities. Model-driven software development (MDSD) provides an efficient methodology enabling the design, integration and verification of robotics applications already at the level of multiple domain-specific models. While the application of MDSD for the engineering of robotics systems is conceptually promising, the interoperability, composability and reusability of developed domain-specific languages and resulting models is challenging. In this paper, we discuss the requirements for language modularization and composition from a robotics perspective and introduce a language composition approach for component-based robotics systems. We utilize a state-of-the-art language workbench supporting reuse, extensibility and refinement of domain-specific languages and code generators. We present and discuss a case study to evaluate the proposed extension and composition approach.