Model-Based System Architecture, 2nd Edition

2An Example: The Scalable Observation and Rescue System

We need an example system for the demonstration of various techniques to be presented in this book. The example shall be based on one single system with one single purpose, but extensible to be explored in scenarios involving the interaction of multiple systems for a purpose different from the one of the original single system.

Our single-purpose system is based on the very old idea of telepresence robots (e.g. [249]). The concrete system was inspired by an organization called “The Workers.” They created a robot system that is called “After Dark” [36], because it is intended to be operated at night, when it is dark – and when almost any museum in town is closed. The system comprises robots that are driving through a closed museum. They carry a lamp to shed light and a camera to capture pictures. When sending the captured pictures to a remote user, the resulting offering is a virtual museum tour (VMT). The described system was demonstrated on 23 August 2014 [139]: After Dark's robots were driving through the gallery “Tate Britain”, and people worldwide could watch the streamed camera images. A similar virtual museum tour offering based on a robot was started in The Mob Museum, Las Vegas, in 2016 [258], and the same technology was at least considered for several art museums [41].

Inspired by these systems, we present the “Virtual Museum Tour system” (VMT). Its central subsystem will be a robot as shown in Figure 2.1, intended ...