CERO: CE RObots community

The authors´ experience in creating a robots community using standard hardware and software - the Windows CE operating system, XScale development boards, and LEGO Mindstorm actuators is described. The focus is an open and extendable distributed robotics system, which, in contrast to most existing proprietary robotics systems, supports cost-effective integration and assembly of components while providing dependable communication and coordination. To demonstrate feasibility the CERO Framework has been developed for ad hoc cooperation in robots communities employing a service-oriented architecture with the main building blocks: ad hoc networking for different wireless technologies (e.g. Bluetooth, WLAN, or 433 MHz radio communication), a protocol for interconnecting development board and actuators, and a CE.NET based software framework supporting complex movements, consensus protocols, cooperation, and positioning. It offers high-level interfaces for programming complex tasks in cooperative robotics. An overview of intended applications is presented also.