Middle-ware-report

Middleware / System Architectures

• OpenRTM-aist
  • Official Page by the developers AIST (Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)
  • OpenRTM-aist is a RT middleware to implement open robot architectures
  • it's in an early stage where it is released to the public for the purpose of evaluation
  • "this project has pursued R&D of technologies to make up robots and their functional parts in modular structure at the software level, and to allow system designers or integrators building versatile robots or systems with relative ease by simply combining selected modular parts."

• MCA2 (Modular Controller Architecture 2)
  • Official Page by the developers FZI (Link)
  • Paper by K.-U. Scholl from 2001 introducing MCA Link (PDF)
• Orca (Component-based Software Framework [for Robotics])
  • Official Page at sourcefourge.net)
  • it's a open-source framework for developing component-based robotic systems. It uses ICE (Internet Connection Engine) for communication
  • current development goes on mainly in Australia (e.g. by The University of Sydney (Link))

• List of other Systems (Japanese, Google Translation):
  • Orocos Project (Link)
    • is more just a 3 components library with focus on general always used applications (Kinematics, Bayesion Filtering, and a toolkit for real-time apps) no real focus on communication
  • Player (Link)
    • small Server application running on the robot and offering TCP Connections for Communication
  • ORIN - Open Resource Interface for the Network / Open Robot Interface for the Network (Link)
    • Page in Japanese without translation.
  • CARMEN - Robot Navigation Toolkit (Link)
    • Toolkit offering just basic navigation primatives (e.g. localization, obstacle avoidance) but not more
  • OpenHRP (Link)
    • Last update Sep. 06. Webpage in Japanese but without any real information.