Managing Resources for Better Behaved Robots

This paper presents an architecture based on features of the QNX real-time operating system (RTOS) that translate directly into aspects of a behaviour-based robotic model.Significant research effort has been expended on the development of flexible frameworks to undertake new projects in the autonomous robotics field. It is argued that it may be more beneficial to tune a proven and flexible operating system to support this work rather than compromise on features to allow porting to other languages and environments.The model presented is a reactive behaviour-based system that inherently boasts strengths such as modularity and robustness. The architecture is flexible enough however to allow different implementations such as Hybrid solutions to be quickly tested under realistic conditions.The merits of the proposed approach are demonstrated by implementing an emergent wander behaviour using only small code segments. The behaviour allows a robot to travel in a human-centric environment at high speed and without collision.The results presented in this paper have been obtained from a real robot in a cluttered office setting.