Integrating heterogeneous robotic software

Software development for large robotic projects involves many different researchers with different programming needs, levels of mastery, and areas of research. Integrating such heterogeneous software while maintaining requirements like real-time, dependability, intensive access to hardware, etc., is a challenge in any long-term effort of this kind. A step forward along that way is the BABEL development system that supports heterogeneous programming languages (C, C++, JAVA), communication middleware (CORBA, TCP/IP connections), and platforms (RT-operating systems, MS-Windows). This paper focuses on the core of BABEL: the Aracne specification that covers the design phase of the robotic application lifecycle