.. |how_it_works| image:: ../../images/icons/How_it_Works.png
   :width: 70
   :align: bottom

.. _how_it_works:

How it Works |how_it_works|
===========================


The Autonomous Mobile Robot (\ Autonomous Mobile Robot\ ) modules are deployed as Deb packages,
enhancing the Developer Experience (DX) and supporting Continuous Integration and
Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) practices. They offer flexible deployment across various
execution environments, including robots, development PCs, servers, and the cloud.


Modules and Services
--------------------


In the Intel® oneAPI Base Toolkit (oneAPI) and Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit (OpenVINO™), a middleware layered
architecture that abstracts hardware dependencies from algorithm implementation.


The ROS 2 with a data distribution service (DDS) is used as a message bus.
This Publisher-Subscriber architecture based on ROS 2 topics decouples
data providers from consumers.


Camera and LiDAR sensor data is abstracted through ROS 2 topics.


Video streaming processing pipelines are supported by GStreamer Open Source Multimedia Framework. GStreamer Open Source Multimedia Framework
is a library for constructing media handling component graphs. It decouples
sensor ingestion, video processing and AI object detection via OpenVINO™
toolkit DL Streamer framework. This versatile framework supports applications ranging from simple
Ogg Vorbis playback audio and video streaming to complex audio (mixing) and
video (non-linear editing) processing.


For more complex computational graphs that decouple Sense-Plan-Act in AMR applications, ROS 2 topic registration can be implemented.


This diagram shows the software components included in the Autonomous Mobile Robot
package.


.. image:: ../../images/amr_sdk_software_components.png


The Autonomous Mobile Robot software stack relies on the underlying hardware platform, software supported by and integrated into
their respective Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) based boot processes, and supported Linux
operating system. For requirement details, see :doc:`../../dev_guide/requirements`.


Autonomous Mobile Robot Drivers
---------------------------------


Autonomous Mobile Robot relies on standard Intel®
Architecture Linux drivers that are included and upstreamed in the Linux kernel
from kernel.org and forming part of Canonical Ubuntu distributions. These drivers
are not bundled within the Autonomous Mobile Robot package. Some notable drivers that are
specifically important for Autonomous Mobile Robot include:

-  Video4Linux2 Driver Framework, a collection of device drivers and an API for
   supporting realtime video capture on Linux systems (compatible with USB
   webcams, TV tuners etc.), standardizing the video output, so that
   programmers can easily add video support to their applications.

-  The Serial Driver, the serial stream as used in Ethernet and USB interfaces.


.. include:: tools.rst

.. include:: robot-apps.rst

.. include:: robot-algorithms.rst

.. include:: robot-middleware.rst