Robotic frameworks, architectures and middleware comparison

Nowadays, the construction of a complex robotic system requires a high level of specialization in a large number of diverse scientific areas. It is reasonable that a single researcher cannot create from scratch the entirety of this system, as it is impossible for him to have the necessary skills in the necessary fields. This obstacle is being surpassed with the existent robotic frameworks. This paper tries to give an extensive review of the most famous robotic frameworks and middleware, as well as to provide the means to effortlessly compare them. Additionally, we try to investigate the differences between the definitions of a robotic framework, a robotic middleware and a robotic architecture.