2001

Funding: European Commission (FP5 IST-31064)

Duration: 1 September 2001 — 31 August 2003

Partners: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan (KTH), Sweden.

Description: OROCOS designs and implements software for robot control, under Open Source license. The goal is to make a library of modular software components that are flexibly useable for all kinds of robotic systems. The major goals are: independence of computer and robot platforms, broad scope (not just industrial robots, but all kinds of mechatronic devices), bottom-up development (implementation of the basic control layers, on top of which larger systems will be built later on).

The Open Source nature of the project has allowed to reach a critical mass of co-designers and implementors that are not sponsored by the project itself, resulting in the (wider scope) Orocos project and the ORCA project.

URL: http://www.orocos.org, http://orca-robotics.sourceforge.net

Funding: European Commission (FP5 IST-31010)

Duration: 1 October 2001 — 31 March 2005

Partners: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; Instituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale, Switzerland; Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy; Ecole Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne, Switzerland.

Description: The main scientific objective of the Swarm-bots project is to study a novel approach to the design and implementation of self-organising and self-assembling artefacts. This novel approach finds its theoretical roots in recent studies in swarm intelligence, that is, in studies of the self-organising and self-assembling capabilities shown by social insects and other animal societies.

The main tangible objective of the project is the demonstration of the approach by means of the construction of at least one of such artefact. We intend to construct a swarm-bot. That is, an artefact composed of a number of simpler, insect-like, robots(s-bots), built out of relatively cheap components, capable of self-assembling and self-organising to adapt to its environment.

URL: http://www.swarm-bots.org