Implementing a reactive semantics using OpenRTM-aist

The expression of reactive behaviour is a significant and important requirement in robotic software engineering, since robots must cope with a wide range of unpredictable events and environments. However it is important that the semantics for reactive expression can be used across different architectures and languages. The RADAR robot programming language provides architecture- and language-independent semantics for managing the reactive parts of robot software together with the deliberative parts, allowing greater interaction between the two. We evaluate the architecture-independence of RADAR, as an example, by implementing its reactive semantics using the OpenRTM-aist component-based, distributed architecture. Our goal is to evaluate what limitations the choice of implementation environment may place on the capabilities of such an architecture-independent semantics. In our implementation, we aimed to produce a standard OpenRTM-aist system using the RADAR semantics. We have found that the architecture-independent semantics concept works well in the case of RADAR, although some specific improvements are needed for full interaction between deliberative and reactive sections of robotic software.