The CARP system's architecture reflects a deliberate balance between safety, modularity, and scalability. By employing a microservices-based, event-driven design deployed on Kubernetes, CARP achieves strong decoupling, fault tolerance, and real-time responsiveness. Kafka serves as the communication backbone, ensuring low-latency, asynchronous coordination across modules — from task orchestration and robot scheduling to path planning, safety enforcement, and infrastructure integration. Every design decision follows the guiding priority: human safety first, followed by equipment protection, fault tolerance, and performance. This safety-first principle is evident in redundant communication channels, fail-safe defaults, and the layered interaction between global planners and on-robot autonomy.
Equally critical is CARP's flexibility and extensibility. The use of adapters and standardized APIs allows integration with heterogeneous robot fleets and facility equipment. The Digital Twin provides a single, continuously updated world model that informs all operational decisions, while monitoring and analytics modules enable proactive maintenance and continuous improvement. Security and governance are embedded throughout the stack with strict authentication, encrypted communication, and audit logging.
Despite its strengths, CARP's design faces limitations. Its reliance on centralized components such as the Digital Twin and Kafka clusters introduces potential bottlenecks and requires robust infrastructure to maintain high availability. The complexity of deploying and tuning multiple microservices also increases operational overhead. Additionally, while event-driven coordination minimizes latency, certain real-time control loops still depend on the responsiveness of external hardware and network conditions.
Overall, CARP demonstrates a cohesive, safety-centric approach to large-scale autonomous robotics orchestration—combining modular design, real-time data flow, and secure extensibility to create a resilient and adaptable warehouse automation platform.