IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015 - 66

FeedbackInterface.h
Wizard
Configurator

New_metric_template.h

If Ne

eded

Compile

Compile
Design Time

Configurator

Run Time
User-Defined
Reference
Feeder
Parameters
Command

FSM

.DLL

Metric
Plug-In

Metric
Computation

Met

Waypoints
Command
Robot Interface

Trajectory
Generator

.DLL
Telemetry
Collection

Feedback

Robot

System Manager

T rajectory PlugT rajectory PlugT rajectory PlugTrajectory
Plug-In

Telemetry

Feedback
Collector

HCI Player
Ground Station

Vehicle

Figure 2. The DeepRuler framework architecture.

A key aspect of the proposed framework is its modularity in
terms of path generation, telemetry collection, and metrics computation. These topics can become quite broad and cannot be
hard-coded or even foreseen for nontrivial data. What this software actually offers is a way for the user to customize the framework with a limited effort thanks to a plug-in approach. The
user can provide, in the form of dynamic library plug-in, his
path generation function, and/or his own metrics algorithm to
be integrated in the framework without the need to recompile
the software. This way, the framework can be expanded to be
able to perform different types of user-defined shapes (i.e.,
square wave, triangular wave, sawthoot wave, and so on).
As a demonstrative case, the current version of DeepRuler
provides a sinusoidal path generation function in which each
run is parameterized by the amplitude of the sine wave and
by the number of half periods to be performed. As an example, an experiment configured with ten runs, where the active run (the seventh) is parameterized by an amplitude of
5 m and has three half periods, is shown in Figure 1.
Software Design and Features
The DeepRuler software framework is an open-source tool.
DeepRuler has been developed here as a highly expandable
66

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

September 2015

tool for automatic path following and, more broadly, for
robot performance testing. Moreover, the aim is to foster its
usability throughout the robotic research community.
DeepRuler is designed to minimize the effort required by
the developer of the robot to integrate the functionality of
the framework in his/her software. It comes with a library
with a simple interface to be linked with the robot software.
The current architecture, shown in Figure 2, is made up of
five modules.
● The wizard configurator guides the user through the experiment setup process described above. In addition, it autogenerates an interface file that will be used in the robot software
to include the DeepRuler framework. This file essentially describes the structure of the telemetry to be collected. The
wizard configurator, if necessary, will also guide the user
through the definition of new metrics. The output of such
steps will be a C++ template of a dynamic library plug-in in
which the user is asked to implement only the core computation function, without the concern of how it will be integrated in the framework. Once compiled, the framework will use
this library during the experiment execution to compute the
custom metrics. A similar approach is used to define custom
path shapes. A C++ template is provided and the user only

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015