Around the Lab in 40 Days

In previous papers 1] we have argued that the LAAS architecture 1 is one of the most suited for mobile robot control. This statement may seem over-optimistic, not to say pretentious and unveriiable. After all, can we compare architectures? can we set up benchmarks? or can we measure how good an architecture is compared to another? An architecture deenes organization principles, integration methods and supporting tools. Comparing those tools, methods and principles may sometime end up in sterile controversies. However, we think there are means to measure the overall quality (or interest) of an architecture. Development time is for example one relevant criterion 5]. Basically, using a speciic architecture , how long does it take to integrate a complete demonstration, including non trivial decisional capabilities , from the low level functional modules up to the supervisory level? This may seem a rather weak measure of an architecture quality, however, it encompasses properties such as: genericity and adaptability, ease of design and programming, extensibility and robustness. In this paper we describe our recent experience in integrating a complete demonstration from scratch in 40 days using the LAAS architecture.