We are currently working on a more robust, secure, and scalable cloud robotics platform supported by Rapyuta Robotics
Rapyuta is an open source cloud robotics framework. The figure below gives a simplified overview of the Rapyuta framework: Each robot connected to Rapyuta will have a secured computing environment (rectangular boxes) giving them the ability to move their heavy computation into the cloud. In addition, the computing environments are tightly interconnected with each other and have a high bandwidth connection to the RoboEarth knowledge repository (stacked circular disks).
Rapyuta. a.k.a. the RoboEarth Cloud Engine, is an open source cloud robotics framework. The framework is built upon a clone based model [1]. Each robot connected to the RoboEarth Cloud Engine will have a system level clone on the cloud giving them the ability to move their heavy computation into the cloud. In addition, the system clones are tightly (high bandwidth) interconnected providing a useful platform for muti-robot deployments.
The system level clone is implemented using linux containers, a light weight virtual mechanism. Therefore the terms [container] and [clone] will be used interchangeably in the documentation. Communication with the robots happens over the websocket protocol, providing a full duplex communication channel between the robot and the cloud with predefined messages.
In the current release Rapyuta allows to use arbitrary ROS nodes and can communicate with them over the standard ROS interfaces: Publisher, Subscriber and Service. Additionally, the RoboEearth Cloud engine provides an interface to the ROS parameter server. The framework is designed in such a way that it can be extended to run applications from other robotic frameworks.
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