Jari Kaikkonen

Interfacing functional modules within mobile robots

Designing mobile robots is a complicated task. A sophisticated mobile system has a very complex inner structure, which makes the overall architecture design hard to maintain. To partially overcome this problem the authors have implemented and tested a blackboard based data exchange architecture. Basic structure of the system is explained in this paper. Possibilities for different application areas are also presented.<<ETX>>

Advanced design methods and tools for mobile robot development

Development of mobile robots is a very difficult and time consuming task. If good development tools were available the development work would be more productive and products would be more reliable. The authors present an efficient design approach for wheeled mobile robot development and give an overall description of tools, which are useful during the development cycle. The problem is divided into several parts: control software, at high and low level; electronics, divided into digital, analogue and power; mechanics, actuators; and sensors.<<ETX>>

New approach to data representation in mobile robot models

An approach to data representation in mobile robot models is described. In this method, the application is modeled using a stepwise modeling principle. System modeling determines the two basic models of the application: a functional model and a data model. These models are used to represent the functions and data structures of the mobile robot