Aseba is an open-source project providing a set of tools that allow beginners to program robots easily and efficiently. Technically speaking, Aseba is an event-based architecture for distributed control of mobile robots. It targets single- or multi-processor robots and simulations. The core of Aseba is a lightweight virtual machine tiny enough to run on microcontrollers. With Aseba, we program robots in a octave-style scripting language using an integrated development environment. This environment provides several features important for robotics, such as real-time inspection of sensor/actuator data, integrating plotting, on-typing compilation, distributed debugging, and instant code upload to the robot. Compared to alternatives (for instance Arduino and Lego Mindstorm), Aseba focuses on text-based programming but takes advantage of the tight integration between the environment and the robot to provide an interactive robot programming experience.

Aseba stems from research in miniature mobile robotics, in which small robots with multiple microcontrollers have risen architectural questions (see papers under links). In addition, Aseba has found a natural application in educational robotics with the Thymio low-cost robot. We have also demonstrated Aseba in simulation and on a group of e-puck robots. Aseba integrates with D-Bus and ROS, allowing access to microcontrollers from high-level languages.

I am the initiator and maintainer of the Aseba technology and one of the most active contributors. I propose to present a talk with the following content: * Genesis, why did we develop such a thing. * Technical overview, with discussion of the design choices. * Presentation of the Aseba in the robotic-research context. * Live demonstration of Aseba in the educational context using the Thymio robot. * Future directions. * Conclusion and question answering.

I started developing Aseba as part of my PhD work in the Mobots research group at EPFL. Currently, a community comprising members of the Mobots group, of the mobsya association, of the ASL at ETH Zürich and other individuals maintain and further develop Aseba.