Telecom and Internet Services Mashup in Robotics : Design, Architecture and Prototyping

Abstract: Modern society expects services to run on any device anywhere, be it an internet service like Google search, or a telecom service like SMS. Why cannot we run Spotify (a famous music player) on my refrigerator, publish a picture of a meal directly to Flicker using my oven, or make a video call from my TV? Thanks to standardized high-level APIs e.g., GSMA OneAPI, developers can nowadays build services for any device with internet connectivity and open platform without integration difficulties. Increasing penetration of such devices allows for increased variety of services built for different types of industries and user groups. This thesis presents a study of a service mash-up that uses both telecom and internet enablers deployed on a Nao robot platform. The robot runs embedded Linux, has internet connectivity, and is equipped with sensors, motors, cameras, speakers, and microphones. This makes it a good prototyping platform for large number of use cases from e.g. consumer electronics, healthcare or manufacturing industries. The prototype implemented in the framework of this thesis shows the robot recognizing people’s faces, answering questions, sending SMS and Facebook updates, locating people, and streaming live video to mobile phones. The thesis is also an extension of the knowledge learned from courses. It covers software architecture design, real-time system design, embedded system, image processing algorithm, and web technologies.