Service-oriented architecture and cloud computing have become the prevalent computing paradigm. In this paradigm, computing resources can be accessed like other utility services available in today's society. In the meantime, robotics applications are joining the trend. More and more robot applications are shifting from manufacture to non-manufacture and service industries. However, for the on-demand supply of the large-scale heterogeneous robots, It is still a problem have not yet been studied, including the fundamental management and efficiency issues in using of these resources. In this paper, we design a framework of "Robot Cloud Center" (RCC) following the general cloud computing paradigm to address the current limitations in capacity and versatility of robotic applications. In this framework, a robot can be provided as a service just like a public utility service so that everyone can access the powerful robotic services easily, efficiently, and cheaply. Based on a given scenario, a robot scheduling algorithm in RCC is proposed to take advantage of the heterogeneous robot resources to meet the end user's requirement with the minimum cost.
B-AIM