EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early

Momina Rizwan; Ricardo Caldas; Christoph Reichenbach; Matthias Mayr

doi:10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014

EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early

Momina Rizwan, Ricardo Caldas, Christoph Reichenbach, Matthias Mayr

Chalmers University of Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Paper in conference proceeding › peer-review

Abstract

When we develop general-purpose robot software components, we rarely know the full context that they will execute in. This limits our ability to make predictions, including our ability to detect program bugs early. Since running a robot is an expensive task, finding errors at runtime can prolong the debugging loop or even cause safety hazards. In this paper, we propose an approach to help developers find bugs early with minimal additional effort by using embedded Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) that enforce early checks. We describe DSL design patterns suitable for the robotics domain and demonstrate our approach for DSL embedding in Python, using a case study on an industrial tool SkiROS2, designed for the composition of robot skills. We demonstrate our patterns on the embedded DSL EzSkiROS and show that our approach is effective in performing safety checks while deploying code on the robot, much earlier than at runtime. An initial study with SkiROS2 developers show that our DSL-based approach is useful for early bug detection and improving the maintainability of robot code.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE)
Publisher	IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	61-68
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-3503-0184-7
ISBN (Print)	979-8-3503-0185-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014
Publication status	Published - 2023 Jul 26

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Software Engineering
Robotics

Free keywords

Domain Specific Languages
Program analysis
Robotics middleware
Robotics
Design Patterns
Bug detection
Robot Skills

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014Licence: CC BY-NC

1 Paper in conference proceeding
1 Doctoral Thesis (compilation)
1 Licentiate Thesis

Learning with Skill-based Robot Systems: Combining Planning & Knowledge Representation with Reinforcement Learning
Mayr, M., 2024 Jan 9, Lund: Computer Science, Lund University. 286 p.
Research output: Thesis › Doctoral Thesis (compilation)

Open Access
File
Programming for Reliability and Safety in Robotics: The Role of Domain-Specific Languages: Domain Specific Programming for Safe and Reliable Robots
Rizwan, M., 2024, Department of Computer Science, Lund University. 128 p.
Research output: Thesis › Licentiate Thesis

Open Access
File
SkiROS2: A Skill-Based Robot Control Platform for ROS
Mayr, M., Rovida, F. & Krueger, V., 2023 Dec 13, 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., p. 6273-6280 8 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Paper in conference proceeding › peer-review

1 Not started
2 Finished
3 Active

Domain-Specific Robot Programming for Reliability, Safety, and Availability
Rizwan, M. (Researcher), Reichenbach, C. (Supervisor) & Krueger, V. (Supervisor)
2020/02/01 → …
Project: Dissertation
RSS: Robotics and Semantic Systems
Krueger, V. (Researcher), Topp, E. A. (Researcher), Malec, J. (Researcher), Haage, M. (Researcher), Mayr, M. (Researcher), Åström, H. (Researcher), Dürr, A. (Researcher), Nugues, P. (Researcher), Klang, M. (Researcher), Klöckner, M. (Researcher), Lager, M. (Researcher), Robertz, S. (Researcher), Nardi, L. (Researcher) & Nilsson, K. (Researcher)
2010/01/01 → …
Project: Network
RobotLab LTH
Bagge Carlson, F. (Researcher), Johansson, R. (Researcher), Karlsson, M. (Researcher), Olofsson, B. (Researcher), Robertsson, A. (Researcher), Robertz, S. (Researcher), Haage, M. (Researcher), Malec, J. (Researcher), Nilsson, K. (Researcher), Nugues, P. (Researcher), Stenmark, M. (Researcher), Topp, E. A. (Researcher), Krueger, V. (Researcher), Åström, H. (Researcher), Mayr, M. (Researcher), Salt Ducaju, J. (Researcher), Nishimura, M. (Administrator), Wisbrant, J. (Project communication officer), Dürr, A. (Researcher), Mayr, M. (Researcher), Nugues, P. (Researcher), Klang, M. (Research engineer), Klöckner, M. (Researcher), Nardi, L. (Researcher), Ahmad, F. (Researcher), Oxenstierna, J. (Researcher), Rizwan, M. (Researcher), Reichenbach, C. (Researcher), Bergström, J. (Researcher), Dell'Unto, N. (Researcher), Maunsbach, L. (Researcher), Åström, K. (Researcher), Blomdell, A. (Research engineer), Magnusson, M. (Researcher), Fransson, P.-A. (Researcher), Karayiannidis, Y. (Researcher), Johansson, A. T. (Researcher), Jia, Z. (Researcher), Laban, L. (Researcher), Wingqvist, B. (Researcher), Guberina, M. (Researcher), Jena, A. (Researcher), Westin, E. (Administrator), Frick, C. (Administrator), Pisarevskiy, A. (Research engineer), Nilsson, A. (Research engineer), Reitmann, S. (Researcher), Hvarfner, C. (Researcher), Stoltenberg, P. (Researcher) & Fregnan, S. (Researcher)
1993/01/01 → …
Project: Research

RobotLab LTH Infrastructure
Krueger, V. (Manager), Olofsson, B. (Manager), Karayiannidis, Y. (Manager), Haage, M. (Manager), Malec, J. (Manager) & Topp, E. A. (Manager)
Faculty of Engineering, LTH
Infrastructure

Cite this

@inproceedings{8a682a4ed7894636ad1f917a7e3811d3,

title = "EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early",

abstract = "When we develop general-purpose robot software components, we rarely know the full context that they will execute in. This limits our ability to make predictions, including our ability to detect program bugs early. Since running a robot is an expensive task, finding errors at runtime can prolong the debugging loop or even cause safety hazards. In this paper, we propose an approach to help developers find bugs early with minimal additional effort by using embedded Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) that enforce early checks. We describe DSL design patterns suitable for the robotics domain and demonstrate our approach for DSL embedding in Python, using a case study on an industrial tool SkiROS2, designed for the composition of robot skills. We demonstrate our patterns on the embedded DSL EzSkiROS and show that our approach is effective in performing safety checks while deploying code on the robot, much earlier than at runtime. An initial study with SkiROS2 developers show that our DSL-based approach is useful for early bug detection and improving the maintainability of robot code.",

keywords = "Domain Specific Languages, Program analysis, Robotics middleware, Robotics, Design Patterns, Bug detection, Robot Skills",

author = "Momina Rizwan and Ricardo Caldas and Christoph Reichenbach and Matthias Mayr",

year = "2023",

month = jul,

day = "26",

doi = "10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014",

language = "English",

isbn = "979-8-3503-0185-4",

pages = "61--68",

booktitle = "2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE)",

publisher = "IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",

address = "United States",

}

EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early. / Rizwan, Momina; Caldas, Ricardo; Reichenbach, Christoph et al.
2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE). IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2023. p. 61-68.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Paper in conference proceeding › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early

AU - Rizwan, Momina

AU - Caldas, Ricardo

AU - Reichenbach, Christoph

AU - Mayr, Matthias

PY - 2023/7/26

Y1 - 2023/7/26

N2 - When we develop general-purpose robot software components, we rarely know the full context that they will execute in. This limits our ability to make predictions, including our ability to detect program bugs early. Since running a robot is an expensive task, finding errors at runtime can prolong the debugging loop or even cause safety hazards. In this paper, we propose an approach to help developers find bugs early with minimal additional effort by using embedded Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) that enforce early checks. We describe DSL design patterns suitable for the robotics domain and demonstrate our approach for DSL embedding in Python, using a case study on an industrial tool SkiROS2, designed for the composition of robot skills. We demonstrate our patterns on the embedded DSL EzSkiROS and show that our approach is effective in performing safety checks while deploying code on the robot, much earlier than at runtime. An initial study with SkiROS2 developers show that our DSL-based approach is useful for early bug detection and improving the maintainability of robot code.

AB - When we develop general-purpose robot software components, we rarely know the full context that they will execute in. This limits our ability to make predictions, including our ability to detect program bugs early. Since running a robot is an expensive task, finding errors at runtime can prolong the debugging loop or even cause safety hazards. In this paper, we propose an approach to help developers find bugs early with minimal additional effort by using embedded Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) that enforce early checks. We describe DSL design patterns suitable for the robotics domain and demonstrate our approach for DSL embedding in Python, using a case study on an industrial tool SkiROS2, designed for the composition of robot skills. We demonstrate our patterns on the embedded DSL EzSkiROS and show that our approach is effective in performing safety checks while deploying code on the robot, much earlier than at runtime. An initial study with SkiROS2 developers show that our DSL-based approach is useful for early bug detection and improving the maintainability of robot code.

KW - Domain Specific Languages

KW - Program analysis

KW - Robotics middleware

KW - Robotics

KW - Design Patterns

KW - Bug detection

KW - Robot Skills

U2 - 10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014

DO - 10.1109/RoSE59155.2023.00014

M3 - Paper in conference proceeding

SN - 979-8-3503-0185-4

SP - 61

EP - 68

BT - 2023 IEEE/ACM 5th International Workshop on Robotics Software Engineering (RoSE)

PB - IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

ER -

EzSkiROS: A Case Study on Embedded Robotics DSLs to Catch Bugs Early

Abstract

Subject classification (UKÄ)

Free keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Research output

Learning with Skill-based Robot Systems: Combining Planning & Knowledge Representation with Reinforcement Learning

Programming for Reliability and Safety in Robotics: The Role of Domain-Specific Languages: Domain Specific Programming for Safe and Reliable Robots

SkiROS2: A Skill-Based Robot Control Platform for ROS

Projects

Domain-Specific Robot Programming for Reliability, Safety, and Availability

RSS: Robotics and Semantic Systems

RobotLab LTH

Equipment

RobotLab LTH Infrastructure

Cite this