Vertical System Integration in Mobile Robots

Francesco Mondada, Robotic Systems Laboratory (LSRO1), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne

Abstract: In this presentation we will illustrate the set of tools we use for the fast development of embedded systems for robotic purposes. As core architecture we will present ASEBA, an event-based architecture for distributed mobile robots control. ASEBA targets integrated multi- processors robots or groups of single-processor devices, provided that they communicate through a network. The core of aseba is a lightweight virtual machine, tiny enough to run on microcontrollers. In Aseba, we write the robot behaviours in a user-friendly scripting language. We do so using an integrated development environment which runs on a desktop computer. The environment compiles, deploys, and debugs the behaviours in real time. The ASEBA implementation on dsPICs is based on the library Molole. Finally, ASEBA connects to Linux environments using D-bus. Several demos will illustrate the approach.

About the speaker: Francesco Mondada is currently leading the MOBOTS group within the LSRO laboratory. He received his M.Sc. in micro-engineering in 1991 and his Doctoral degree in 1997 at EPFL. During his thesis he co-founded the company K-Team, being both CEO and president of the company for about 5 years. He is one of the three main developers of the Khepera robot, considered as a standard in bio-inspired robotics and used by more than 1,000 universities and research centers worldwide. Fully back in research in 2000 and after a short period at CALTECH, he participated to the SWARM-BOTS project as the main developer of the s-bot robot platform. In November 2005 he received the EPFL Latsis University prize for his contributions to bio-inspired robotics. His interests include the development of innovative mechatronic solutions for mobile and modular robots, the creation of know-how for future embedded applications, and making robot platforms more accessible for education, research and industrial development.