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iven set of goals (tasks). TCA provides a general control framework, and is intended to control a wide variety of robots. TCA provides a highlevel machineindependent method for passing messages between distributed machines (including between Lisp and C processes). TCA provides control functions, such as task deposition, monitoring, and resource management, that are mon to many mobile robot applications. The Resources section provides technical references and download information for Task Control Architecture. EMC (Enhanced Machine Controller): The EMC software is based on the NIST Real time Control System (RCS) methodology, and is programmed using the NIST RCS Library. The RCS Library eases the porting of controller code to a variety of UNIX and Microsoft platforms, providing a neutral application programming interface (API) to operating system resources such as shared memory, semaphores and timers. The EMC software is written in C and C++, and has been ported to the PC Linux, Windows NT, and Sun Solaris operating systems. Darwin2K: Darwin2K is a free, open source toolkit for robot simulation and automated design. It features numerous simulation capabilities and an evolutionary algorithm capable of automatically synthesizing and optimizing robot designs to meet taskspecific performance objectives. LanguagesRoboML (Robotic Markup Language): RoboML is used for standardized representation of roboticsrelated data. It is designed to support munication language between humanrobot interface agents, as well as between robothosted processes and between interface processes, and to provide a format for archived data used by humanrobot interface agents. ROSSUM: A programming and simulation environment for mobile robots. The Rossum Project is an attempt to help collect, develop, and distribute software for robotics applications. The Rossum Project hopes to extend the same kind of collaboration to the development of robotic software. XRCL (Extensible Robot Control Language): XRCL (pronounced zircle) is a relatively simple, modern language and environment designed to allow robotics researchers to share ideas by sharing code. It is an open source project, protected by the GNU Copyleft. SummaryThe field of robotics has created a large class of robots with basic physical and navigational petencies. At the same time, society has begun to move towards incorporating robots into everyday life, from entertainment to health care. Moreover, robots could free a large number of people from hazardous situations, essentially allowing them to be used as replacements for human beings. Many of the applicatio