Abstract Robot Toolkit (ART)

The idea of the Abstract Robot Toolkit (ART) is to provide an object-oriented class library for controlling robots mostly independent of their hardware.

The current implementation is in Java. It provides reasonably harware-independent access to the following robot hardware remotely from a stationary Computer running Java (at least version 1.2.x):

• The RCX programmable brick from the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System, running the standard lego firmware. Any version can be used as long as the infrared tower is the one with the serial connection. No support for the new USB-tower from RIS 2.0.
• The Intelligent Interface from Fischertechnik, including the Extension Module.

As all these interfaces use a serial connection to the PC an implementation of the Java Communications API is also needed.

As this is a german "Diplomarbeit" (Master's Thesis) a lot of the documentation is in german language. However, a short tutorial about the Abstract Robot Toolkit is available as an english article in ACM Crossroads. Also the JavaDoc-Documentation of the library is in english and there are some web-pages available from talks given at the Rochester Institute of Technology which explain some of the basic concepts. If this does not help You enough in understanding and using ART feel free to send an e-mail to art@jaetzold.de.

A lot of information from books and web-pages has been used for ART. See the "Literaturverzeichnis"-section in the file art.pdf.

Downloads and Documentation

• art.jar - the class files of the Abstract Robot Tookit implementation.
• de.jaetzold.art.properties - a configuration file for ART. Not needed but helpful.
• art-sources.tgz - Java sources of ART.
• art-examples.tgz - Java sources of the examples included in ART. These files are also included in "art-sources.tgz".
• art-javadocs.tgz - JavaDoc Documentation of ART (browse online).
• art.pdf - The text of the Diplomarbeit (only available in german language).
• Objects & Robots - Web pages used as slides in a talk at Rochester Institute of Technology, Fall 2000 and in a talk at University Osnabrück, January 2001. It depends on Your browsers language preferences which version is presented to You.
• Programming Robots with Java - Web pages used as slides in a talk at Rochester Institute of Technology, January 2002.
• ART: The Abstract Robot Toolkit - Article from issue "8.5 - Tools Tutorials" of the ACM Crossroads Student Journal. (late summer 2002)

Last modified: Thursday, 12 January, 2006 17:10 (webmaster@jaetzold.de).