Standardizing I/O for Mechatronic Systems (SIOMS) Using Real Time Unix Device Drivers

This paper describes ongoing work toward a remote robotics research site which allows repeatable remote experimentation on multiple mobile robots. Our system consists of ten small mobile robots hosting onboard Unix workstations. The robots provide facilities for sensing and moving obstacles, inter-robot positioning and communications, and user input. The Unix workstations allow the user to control the robots using common languages in a familiar environment, while also providing an interface to mass-market peripherals (secondary storage and vision), network access (telnet, FTP, mail, and HTTP), and robust multi-tasking. We believe that this work provides a foundation for future e orts toward new paradigms for remote research and user interaction with taskable hardware (e.g., colonies of application-speci c robots). We envision applications in such domains as agriculture, environmental monitoring, and deep-space exploration.