  Service robots are complex, heterogeneous, software intensive systems built
from components. Recent robotics research trends mainly address isolated
capabilities on functional level. Non-functional properties, such as
responsiveness or deterministic behavior, are addressed only in isolation (if
at all). We argue that handling such non-functional properties on system level
is a crucial next step. We claim that precise control over
application-specific, dynamic execution and interaction behavior of functional
components -- i.e. clear computation and communication semantics on model level
without hidden code-defined parts -- is a key ingredient thereto.
  In this paper, we propose modeling concepts for these semantics, and present
a meta-model which (i) enables component developers to implement component
functionalities without presuming application-specific, system-level
attributes, and (ii) enables system integrators to reason about causal
dependencies between components as well as system-level data-flow
characteristics. This allows to control data-propagation semantics and system
properties such as end-to-end latencies during system integration without
breaking component encapsulation.
