Χριστόφορος Ζολώτας

Panayiotou, Konstantinos, Emmanouil Tsardoulias, Christoforos Zolotas, Andreas L. Symeonidis, and Loukas Petrou

Software, 1, (1), pp. 53-79, 2022 Mar

It is common knowledge among computer scientists and software engineers that ”building robotics systems is hard”: it includes applied and specialized knowledge from various scientific fields, such as mechanical, electrical and computer engineering, computer science and physics, among others. To expedite the development of robots, a significant number of robotics-oriented middleware solutions and frameworks exist that provide high-level functionality for the implementation of the in-robot software stack, such as ready-to-use algorithms and sensor/actuator drivers. While the aforementioned focus is on the implementation of the core functionalities and control layer of robots, these specialized tools still require extensive training, while not providing the envisaged freedom in design choices. In this paper, we discuss most of the robotics software development methodologies and frameworks, analyze the way robotics applications are built and propose a new resource-oriented architecture towards the rapid development of robot-agnostic applications. The contribution of our work is a methodology and a model-based middleware that can be used to provide remote robot-agnostic interfaces. Such interfaces may support robotics application development from citizen developers by reducing hand-coding and technical knowledge requirements. This way, non-robotics experts will be able to integrate and use robotics in a wide range of application domains, such as healthcare, home assistance, home automation and cyber–physical systems in general.

@article{r4aarchitecture,
author={Panayiotou and Konstantinos and Emmanouil Tsardoulias and Christoforos Zolotas and Andreas L. Symeonidis and and Loukas Petrou},
title={A Framework for Rapid Robotic Application Development for Citizen Developers},
journal={Software},
volume={1},
number={1},
pages={53-79},
year={2022},
month={03},
date={2022-03-03},
url={https://www.mdpi.com/2674-113X/1/1/4/htm},
doi={https://doi.org/10.3390/software1010004},
abstract={It is common knowledge among computer scientists and software engineers that ”building robotics systems is hard”: it includes applied and specialized knowledge from various scientific fields, such as mechanical, electrical and computer engineering, computer science and physics, among others. To expedite the development of robots, a significant number of robotics-oriented middleware solutions and frameworks exist that provide high-level functionality for the implementation of the in-robot software stack, such as ready-to-use algorithms and sensor/actuator drivers. While the aforementioned focus is on the implementation of the core functionalities and control layer of robots, these specialized tools still require extensive training, while not providing the envisaged freedom in design choices. In this paper, we discuss most of the robotics software development methodologies and frameworks, analyze the way robotics applications are built and propose a new resource-oriented architecture towards the rapid development of robot-agnostic applications. The contribution of our work is a methodology and a model-based middleware that can be used to provide remote robot-agnostic interfaces. Such interfaces may support robotics application development from citizen developers by reducing hand-coding and technical knowledge requirements. This way, non-robotics experts will be able to integrate and use robotics in a wide range of application domains, such as healthcare, home assistance, home automation and cyber–physical systems in general.}
}

E. Tsardoulias, C. Zolotas, S. Siouli, P. Antoniou, S. Amanatiadis, T. Karanikiotis, E. Chondromatidis, P. Bamidis, G. Karagiannis and A. Symeonidis

14th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation - 2021, 2021 Nov

@conference{ets2021iceriTektrain,
author={E. Tsardoulias and C. Zolotas and S. Siouli and P. Antoniou and S. Amanatiadis and T. Karanikiotis and E. Chondromatidis and P. Bamidis and G. Karagiannis and A. Symeonidis},
title={Science and mathematics education via remote robotics deployment - The TekTrain paradigm},
booktitle={14th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation - 2021},
year={2021},
month={11},
date={2021-11-08},
url={https://iated.org/concrete3/paper_detail.php?paper_id=92520}
}

Konstantinos Panayiotou, Emmanouil Tsardoulias, Christopher Zolotas, Iason Paraskevopoulos, Alexandra Chatzicharistou, Alexandros Sahinis, Stathis Dimitriadis, Dimitra Ntzioni, Christopher Mpekos, Giannis Manousaridis, Aris Georgoulas and Andreas Symeonidis

2019 Sixth International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS), 2019 Oct

Robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) are two of the most blooming scientific areas during the last years. Robotics has gained a lot of attention in the last decades and includes several disciplines (mapping, localization, planning, control etc.), while IoT is a quite new and exciting area, where seamless data aggregation and resource utilization from heterogeneous physical objects (e.g. devices, sensor networks and robots) is defined via multi-layer architectures. Moreover, Cyber-Physical systems (CPS) share similar concepts and principles with the IoT, focused on interconnecting physical and computational resources via multi-layer architectures. The current paper joins the Robotics and CPS disciplines via an architecture where heterogeneous physical and computational elements exist (robots, web app, message broker etc.), so as to implement a cyber-physical port of the famous Pacman game, called RoboPacman.

@conference{etsardouPacman2019,
author={Konstantinos Panayiotou and Emmanouil Tsardoulias and Christopher Zolotas and Iason Paraskevopoulos and Alexandra Chatzicharistou and Alexandros Sahinis and Stathis Dimitriadis and Dimitra Ntzioni and Christopher Mpekos and Giannis Manousaridis and Aris Georgoulas and Andreas Symeonidis},
title={Ms Pacman and the Robotic Ghost: A Modern Cyber-Physical Remake of the Famous Pacman Game},
booktitle={2019 Sixth International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS)},
year={2019},
month={10},
date={2019-10-22},
url={https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8939255},
doi={https://doi.org/10.1109/IOTSMS48152.2019.8939255},
keywords={Internet of Things;Robots;computer games;cyber-physical systems},
abstract={Robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) are two of the most blooming scientific areas during the last years. Robotics has gained a lot of attention in the last decades and includes several disciplines (mapping, localization, planning, control etc.), while IoT is a quite new and exciting area, where seamless data aggregation and resource utilization from heterogeneous physical objects (e.g. devices, sensor networks and robots) is defined via multi-layer architectures. Moreover, Cyber-Physical systems (CPS) share similar concepts and principles with the IoT, focused on interconnecting physical and computational resources via multi-layer architectures. The current paper joins the Robotics and CPS disciplines via an architecture where heterogeneous physical and computational elements exist (robots, web app, message broker etc.), so as to implement a cyber-physical port of the famous Pacman game, called RoboPacman.}
}

Konstantinos Panayiotou, Emmanouil Tsardoulias, Christopher Zolotas, Iason Paraskevopoulos, Alexandra Chatzicharistou, Alexandros Sahinis, Stathis Dimitriadis, Dimitra Ntzioni, Christopher Mpekos, Giannis Manousaridis, Aris Georgoulas and Andreas L. Symeonidis

2019 Sixth International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS), pp. 147-154, 2019 Oct

@inproceedings{panayiotou2019ms,
author={Konstantinos Panayiotou and Emmanouil Tsardoulias and Christopher Zolotas and Iason Paraskevopoulos and Alexandra Chatzicharistou and Alexandros Sahinis and Stathis Dimitriadis and Dimitra Ntzioni and Christopher Mpekos and Giannis Manousaridis and Aris Georgoulas and Andreas L. Symeonidis},
title={Ms Pacman and the Robotic Ghost: A Modern Cyber-Physical Remake of the Famous Pacman Game},
booktitle={2019 Sixth International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS)},
pages={147-154},
editor={IEEE},
year={2019},
month={10},
date={2019-10-22},
url={https://bit.ly/33RgGyZ},
doi={https://doi.org/10.1109/IOTSMS48152.2019.8939255}
}

Christoforos Zolotas, Kyriakos C. Chatzidimitriou and Andreas L. Symeonidis

Enterprise Information Systems, pp. 1-27, 2018 Mar

In the modern business world it is increasingly often that Enterprises opt to bring their business model online, in their effort to reach out to more end users and increase their customer base. While transitioning to the new model, enterprises consider securing their data of pivotal importance. In fact, many efforts have been introduced to automate this ‘webification’ process; however, they all fall short in some aspect: a) they either generate only the security infrastructure, assigning implementation to the developers, b) they embed mainstream, less powerful authorisation schemes, or c) they disregard the merits of the dominating REST architecture and adopt less suitable approaches. In this paper we present RESTsec, a Low-Code platform that supports rapid security requirements modelling for Enterprise Services, abiding by the state of the art ABAC authorisation scheme. RESTsec enables the developer to seamlessly embed the desired access control policy and generate the service, the security infrastructure and the code. Evaluation shows that our approach is valid and can help developers deliver secure by design enterprise services in a rapid and automated manner.

@article{2018Zolotas,
author={Christoforos Zolotas and Kyriakos C. Chatzidimitriou and Andreas L. Symeonidis},
title={RESTsec: a low-code platform for generating secure by design enterprise services},
journal={Enterprise Information Systems},
pages={1-27},
year={2018},
month={03},
date={2018-03-09},
doi={https://doi.org/10.1080/17517575.2018.1462403},
abstract={In the modern business world it is increasingly often that Enterprises opt to bring their business model online, in their effort to reach out to more end users and increase their customer base. While transitioning to the new model, enterprises consider securing their data of pivotal importance. In fact, many efforts have been introduced to automate this ‘webification’ process; however, they all fall short in some aspect: a) they either generate only the security infrastructure, assigning implementation to the developers, b) they embed mainstream, less powerful authorisation schemes, or c) they disregard the merits of the dominating REST architecture and adopt less suitable approaches. In this paper we present RESTsec, a Low-Code platform that supports rapid security requirements modelling for Enterprise Services, abiding by the state of the art ABAC authorisation scheme. RESTsec enables the developer to seamlessly embed the desired access control policy and generate the service, the security infrastructure and the code. Evaluation shows that our approach is valid and can help developers deliver secure by design enterprise services in a rapid and automated manner.}
}

Emmanouil G. Tsardoulias, Konstantinos L. Panayiotou, Christoforos Zolotas, Alexandros Philotheou, Anreas L. Symeonidis and Loukas Petrou

3rd International Workshop on Microsystems, Sindos Campus, ATEI Thessaloniki, Greece, 2018 Dec

Nowadays, a rapid transition from the classical robotic systems to more modern concepts like Cloud or IoT robotics is being experienced. The current paper briefly overviews the benefits robots can have, as parts of the increasingly interconnected world.

@conference{TsardouliasMicrosystems2018,
author={Emmanouil G. Tsardoulias and Konstantinos L. Panayiotou and Christoforos Zolotas and Alexandros Philotheou and Anreas L. Symeonidis and Loukas Petrou},
title={From classical to cloud robotics: Challenges and potential},
booktitle={3rd International Workshop on Microsystems},
address={Sindos Campus, ATEI Thessaloniki, Greece},
year={2018},
month={12},
date={2018-12-01},
url={https://issel.ee.auth.gr/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/From-classical-to-cloud-robotics-Challenges-and-potential.pdf},
abstract={Nowadays, a rapid transition from the classical robotic systems to more modern concepts like Cloud or IoT robotics is being experienced. The current paper briefly overviews the benefits robots can have, as parts of the increasingly interconnected world.}
}

Christoforos Zolotas, Themistoklis Diamantopoulos, Kyriakos Chatzidimitriou and Andreas Symeonidis

Automated Software Engineering, pp. 1-48, 2016 Sep

During the last few years, the REST architectural style has drastically changed the way web services are developed. Due to its transparent resource-oriented model, the RESTful paradigm has been incorporated into several development frameworks that allow rapid development and aspire to automate parts of the development process. However, most of the frameworks lack automation of essential web service functionality, such as authentication or database searching, while the end product is usually not fully compliant to REST. Furthermore, most frameworks rely heavily on domain specific modeling and require developers to be familiar with the employed modeling technologies. In this paper, we present a Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) engine that supports fast design and implementation of web services with advanced functionality. Our engine provides a front-end interface that allows developers to design their envisioned system through software requirements in multimodal formats. Input in the form of textual requirements and graphical storyboards is analyzed using natural language processing techniques and semantics, to semi-automatically construct the input model for the MDE engine. The engine subsequently applies model-to-model transformations to produce a RESTful, ready-to-deploy web service. The procedure is traceable, ensuring that changes in software requirements propagate to the underlying software artefacts and models. Upon assessing our methodology through a case study and measuring the effort reduction of using our tools, we conclude that our system can be effective for the fast design and implementation of web services, while it allows easy wrapping of services that have been engineered with traditional methods to the MDE realm.

@article{2016ZolotasASE,
author={Christoforos Zolotas and Themistoklis Diamantopoulos and Kyriakos Chatzidimitriou and Andreas Symeonidis},
title={From requirements to source code: a Model-Driven Engineering approach for RESTful web services},
journal={Automated Software Engineering},
pages={1-48},
year={2016},
month={09},
date={2016-09-01},
url={http://issel.ee.auth.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ReqsToCodeMDE.pdf},
doi={http://10.1007/s10515-016-0206-x},
abstract={During the last few years, the REST architectural style has drastically changed the way web services are developed. Due to its transparent resource-oriented model, the RESTful paradigm has been incorporated into several development frameworks that allow rapid development and aspire to automate parts of the development process. However, most of the frameworks lack automation of essential web service functionality, such as authentication or database searching, while the end product is usually not fully compliant to REST. Furthermore, most frameworks rely heavily on domain specific modeling and require developers to be familiar with the employed modeling technologies. In this paper, we present a Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) engine that supports fast design and implementation of web services with advanced functionality. Our engine provides a front-end interface that allows developers to design their envisioned system through software requirements in multimodal formats. Input in the form of textual requirements and graphical storyboards is analyzed using natural language processing techniques and semantics, to semi-automatically construct the input model for the MDE engine. The engine subsequently applies model-to-model transformations to produce a RESTful, ready-to-deploy web service. The procedure is traceable, ensuring that changes in software requirements propagate to the underlying software artefacts and models. Upon assessing our methodology through a case study and measuring the effort reduction of using our tools, we conclude that our system can be effective for the fast design and implementation of web services, while it allows easy wrapping of services that have been engineered with traditional methods to the MDE realm.}
}

Christoforos Zolotas and Andreas Symeonidis

The 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, Ottawa, Canada, 2015 Oct

—Automated software engineering research aspiresto lead to more consistent software, faster delivery and lowerproduction costs. Meanwhile, RESTful design is rapidly gainingmomentum towards becoming the primal software engineeringparadigm for the web, due to its simplicity and reusability. Thispaper attempts to couple the two perspectives and take the firststep towards applying the MDE paradigm to RESTful servicedevelopment at the PIM zone. A UML profile is introduced,which performs PIM meta-modeling of RESTful web servicesabiding by the third level of Richardson’s maturity model. Theprofile embeds a slight variation of the MVC design pattern tocapture the core REST qualities of a resource. The proposedprofile is followed by an indicative example that demonstrateshow to apply the concepts presented, in order to automate PIMproduction of a system according to MOF stack. Next stepsinclude the introduction of the corresponding CIM, PSM andcode production.Index Terms—Model Driven Engineering; RESTful services;UML Profiles; Meta-modeling; Automated Software Engineering

@conference{2015ZolotasICMDELS,
author={Christoforos Zolotas and Andreas Symeonidis},
title={Towards an MDA Mechanism for RESTful Services Development},
booktitle={The 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems},
address={Ottawa, Canada},
year={2015},
month={10},
date={2015-10-02},
url={http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1563/paper6.pdf},
slideshare={http://www.slideshare.net/isselgroup/towards-an-mda-mechanism-for-restful-services-development},
abstract={—Automated software engineering research aspiresto lead to more consistent software, faster delivery and lowerproduction costs. Meanwhile, RESTful design is rapidly gainingmomentum towards becoming the primal software engineeringparadigm for the web, due to its simplicity and reusability. Thispaper attempts to couple the two perspectives and take the firststep towards applying the MDE paradigm to RESTful servicedevelopment at the PIM zone. A UML profile is introduced,which performs PIM meta-modeling of RESTful web servicesabiding by the third level of Richardson’s maturity model. Theprofile embeds a slight variation of the MVC design pattern tocapture the core REST qualities of a resource. The proposedprofile is followed by an indicative example that demonstrateshow to apply the concepts presented, in order to automate PIMproduction of a system according to MOF stack. Next stepsinclude the introduction of the corresponding CIM, PSM andcode production.Index Terms—Model Driven Engineering; RESTful services;UML Profiles; Meta-modeling; Automated Software Engineering}
}