Perspectives on Standardization in Mobile Robot Programming: The Carnegie Mellon Navigation (CARMEN) Toolkit

Michael Montemerlo, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Nicholas Roy, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, and Sebastian Thrun, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

8/14/2008
(Original Publish Date: 5/1/2003)

In this paper we describe our open-source robot control software, the Carnegie Mellon Navigation (CARMEN) Toolkit. The ultimate goals of CARMEN are to lower the barrier to implementing new algorithms on real and simulated robots and to facilitate sharing of research and algorithms between different institutions. In order for CARMEN to be as inclusive of various research approaches as possible, we have chosen not to adopt strict software standards, but to instead focus on good design practices. This paper will outline the lessons we have learned in developing these practices.