Design and integration of new software for the Robot Controller Test Station

A description is given of the Robot Controller Test Station (RCTS), a software environment for implementing, testing, and evaluating robot control and sensor algorithms in both a simulated and a real robot system. RCTS is designed for flexibility, portability, ease of modification and ease of use. The authors discuss many of the design and implementation issues for RCTS. They outline the steps that a researcher can follow in order to integrate a control, sensing hardware interface or data analysis algorithm into an RCTS-based robot system. These steps do not require the researcher to be an expert programmer or even to comprehend the remainder of the robot software, so he or she can concentrate on algorithm design and optimization