This paper describes the Robotarium -- a remotely accessible, multi-robot research facility. The impetus behind the Robotarium is that multi-robot testbeds constitute an integral and essential part of the multi-robot research cycle, yet they are expensive, complex, and time-consuming to develop, operate, and maintain. These resource constraints, in turn, limit access for large groups of researchers and students, which is what the Robotarium is remedying by providing users with remote access to a state-of-the-art multi-robot test facility. This paper details the design and operation of the Robotarium and discusses the considerations one must take when making complex hardware remotely accessible. In particular, safety must be built into the system already at the design phase without overly constraining what coordinated control programs users can upload and execute, which calls for minimally invasive safety routines with provable performance guarantees.
A number of testbeds have originated in the educational domain. For example, the Robotic Programming Network (RPN) @cite_3 makes a single humanoid robot remotely accessible while Robotnacka @cite_21 provides access to three mobile robots. A comprehensive overview of other educational testbeds can be found in @cite_9 . While providing the required infrastructure for remote access, compared to the Robotarium, most educational testbeds contain small numbers of robots and are not explicitly designed to be research platforms for multi-robot or swarm robotics experiments.
@cite_9 @cite_21 @cite_3
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The use of computers and multimedia, as well as the World Wide Web and new communication technologies, allows new forms of teaching and learning such as distance learning, blended learning, use of virtual libraries and many more. The herewith discussed remotely controlled laboratory (RCL) project shall offer an additional contribution. The basic idea is for a user to connect via the Internet with a computer from place A to a real experiment carried out in place B. An overview of our technical and didactical developments as well as an outlook on future plans is presented. Currently, about ten RCLs have been implemented. The essential characteristics of an RCL are the intuitive use and interactivity (operating the technical parameters), the possibility of different points of view of the ongoing experiment thanks to web cams and the quickest possible transfer of the data measured by the user. A reasonable use of sensibly chosen real experiments as remote labs allows a new form of homework and exercises, as well as project work and the execution of experiments, which usually would be a teacher's prerogative only. Robotnacka is an autonomous drawing mobile robot, designed for eaching beginners in the Logo programming language. It can also be used as an experimental platform, in our case in a remotely accessible robotic laboratory with the possibility to control the robots via the Internet. In addition to a basic version of the robot a version equipped with a gripper is available too, one with a wireless camera, and one with additional ultrasonic distance sensors. The laboratory is available on-line permanently and provides a simple way to incorporate robotics in teaching mathematics, programming and other subjects. The laboratory has been in use several years. We provide description of its functionality and summarize our experience. RPN (Robotic Programming Network) is an initiative to bring existing remote robot laboratories to a new dimension, by adding the flexibility and power of writing ROS code in an Internet browser and running it in the remote robot with a single click. The code is executed in the robot server at full speed, i.e. without any communication delay, and the output of the process is returned back. Built upon Robot Web Tools, RPN works out-of-the-box in any ROS-based robot or simulator. This paper presents the core functionality of RPN in the context of a web-enabled ROS system, its possibilities for remote education and training, and some experimentation with simulators and real robots in which we have integrated the tool in a Moodle environment, creating some programming courses and make it open to researchers and students (http: robotprogramming.uji.es).