Implementing real-time robotic systems using CHIMERA II

The CHIMERA II programming environment and operating system, which was developed for implementing real-time robotic systems, is described. The CHIMERA II environment is designed to reduce the development time of applications by providing a convenient software interface between the hardware and the user. CHIMERA II supports flexible hardware configurations which are based on one or more VME backplanes. All communication across multiple processors is transparent to the user through an extensive set of interprocessor communication primitives. CHIMERA II also provides a high-performance real-time kernel which supports both deadline and highest-priority-first scheduling. The flexibility of CHIMERA II allows hierarchical models for robot control. such as NASREM, to be implemented with minimal programming time and effort