Researching and developing a real-time infrastructure for intelligent systems — Evolution of an integrated approach

In this paper, we describe the principles and the methodologies that we have researched for the creation of a software infrastructure for bridging the gap from brain-like systems design to standard software technology. Looking at the brain, we constantly take inspiration and choose the relevant principles that our computer-base model should/could be based on. This ranges from the evolution of the brain (phylogenetically and ontogenetically), the inherent autonomy of the currently identified areas, the intrinsic synchronization through the most basic control mechanisms that regulates interaction, communication, and modulation. With these principles in mind, we started to make a subdivision of our system into instance, functional and computing architecture, modeling each sub-system with processes and tools in order to create a basic infrastructure that supports the research and creation of intelligent systems. The basic elements of our infrastructure are the BBCM (Brain Bytes Component Model) and BBDM (Brain Bytes Data Model), created to enable the modularization and reuse of our systems. Based on those, we have developed DTBOS (Design Tool for Brain Operating System), the design environment for supporting graphical design, RTBOS (Real-Time Brain Operating System), the middleware that supports real-time execution of our modular systems, and CMBOS (Control-Monitor Brain Operating System) to enable the monitoring of running modules. We will show the feasibility of the established environment by shortly describing some of the experimental systems in the area of cognitive robotics that we have created. This will serve to give a more concrete understanding of the dimensions and the type of systems that we have been able to create.