Mining Energy-Related Practices in Robotics Software

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the ROS ecosystem to identify key causes and solutions for energy inefficiency in robotics software, aiming to improve robot autonomy and sustainability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of energy-related issues in ROS, including causes, solutions, and trade-offs, based on extensive data from repositories and community platforms.

Findings

Identified 10 recurrent causes of energy inefficiency

Proposed 14 solutions with associated trade-offs

Quantified community interest in energy-efficient robotics software

Abstract

Robots are becoming more and more commonplace in many industry settings. This successful adoption can be partly attributed to (1) their increasingly affordable cost and (2) the possibility of developing intelligent, software-driven robots. Unfortunately, robotics software consumes significant amounts of energy. Moreover, robots are often battery-driven, meaning that even a small energy improvement can help reduce its energy footprint and increase its autonomy and user experience. In this paper, we study the Robot Operating System (ROS) ecosystem, the de-facto standard for developing and prototyping robotics software. We analyze 527 energy-related data points (including commits, pull-requests, and issues on ROS-related repositories, ROS-related questions on StackOverflow, ROS Discourse, ROS Answers, and the official ROS Wiki). Our results include a quantification of the interest of roboticists on software energy efficiency, 10 recurrent causes, and 14 solutions of energy-related issues, and their implied trade-offs with respect to other quality attributes. Those contributions support roboticists and researchers towards having energy-efficient software in future robotics projects.