Real-Time Operating Systems for Robotic Applications : a Comparative Survey

Modern robotics brings up a variety of new challenges. Industrial-only times are gone forever. Nowadays, by performing many diversified services, robots turned out to be a part of our everyday life. There is no doubt that they should be able to interact with this new miscellaneous environment seamlessly. Along with the number of requirements, the importance of software increases. While gaining more autonomy, besides standard motion control, a wide range of cogntive tasks has to be executed simultaneously. It is quite obvious that complex systems with a lot of independent modules and many functions to perform need flexible and reliable sofware solutions. This article takes a Real-Time Operating System as an answer to the problems of the new generation robotics.By comparing selected features, it provides an evaluation of the most popular commercial and non-commercial solutions. Paper describes the key characteristics that should be taken into consideration during the design process and presents several examples of their successful robotic applications, including our own choices for decentralized controllers.