Using real-time awareness to manage performance of Java clients on mobile robots

In this paper, we propose an extension to existing mobile robot development environments that explicitly declares the frequency requirements for client controller threads. This extension enables better use of robot resources by running modules only as fast as needed. Developers are forced to consider the frequency requirements and their impacts, which should result in better code. Physical experiments employed a K-team Koala robot. Preliminary results showing the effect of explicitly defining frequency are also presented.