Goby3: A new open-source middleware for nested communication on autonomous marine vehicles

Abstract

Software systems for robotics increasingly require support for robust interprocess communication with common interfaces, which has given rise to the use of “middleware” software projects. However, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have a significantly different intervehicle communication regime than other branches of robotics due to the physical realities of the ocean as a communication medium. Goby3 is a new middleware, the first specifically designed to address intervehicle, interprocess, and interthread communication on AUVs in a unified manner. Goby3 is based on C++11 and is minimally restrictive on the types that can be published and subscribed using it. A reference implementation is given that uses C++ shared pointers for interthread, ZeroMQ for interprocess, and Goby-Acomms for intervehicle communication. This implementation is shown to give similar or better performance to existing middlewares.