Model-based Generation of Hardware/Software Architectures for Robotics Systems

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Robotic systems compute data from multiple sensors to perform several actions (e.g., path planning, object detection). FPGA - based architectures for such systems may consist of several accelerators to process compute-intensive algorithms. Designing and implementing such complex systems tends to be an arduous task. This work proposes a modeling approach to generate architectures for such applications, compliant with existing robotics middlewares (e.g., ROS, ROS2). The challenge is to have a compact, yet expressive description of the system with just enough information to generate all required components and to integrate existing algorithms. This system model must be generalizable, so it is not application-dependent, and it must exploit the benefits of FPGAs over software solutions. Previous work mainly focused on individual accelerators rather than all components involved in a system and their interactions. The proposed approach exploits the advantages of model-driven engineering and model-based code generation to produce all components, i.e., message converters acting as middleware interfaces and wrappers to integrate algorithms. Data type and data flow analysis are performed to derive the necessary information to generate the components and their connections. Solutions to several identified challenges for generating entire systems from such models are evaluated using four different use cases.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2022 32nd International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications, FPL 2022
PublisherIEEE Xplore
Pages153-159
Number of pages7
ISBN (electronic)978-1-6654-7390-3
ISBN (print)978-1-6654-7391-0
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesInternational Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications (FPL)
ISSN1946-147X

Conference

Title2022 32nd International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications
Abbreviated titleFPL 2022
Conference number32
Duration29 August - 2 September 2022
Website
LocationQueen’s Film Theatre
CityBelfast
CountryUnited Kingdom

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2571-8441/work/142240592
ORCID /0000-0002-6311-3251/work/142248746
Scopus 85145550686
Mendeley e784686b-8d2a-3156-84f1-da4f5a88cf93
ORCID /0000-0002-3513-6448/work/168720192

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards

Keywords

  • FPGAs, Model-Based, HW/SW Co-Design, Code Generation, Robotics, Embedded Hardware

Library keywords