Interface design for smart transducers

This paper describes design issues on smart trans-ducer interfaces to hide the internal node properties and allow a decoupling of applications from commu-nication properties like message timing, flow con-trol and bus access. We present a smart transducer interface that incorporates three different interfaces (real-time service, diagnostic/maintenance, configu-ration/planning). Further decomposition of real-time systems can be provided by hiding the sensor properties from the ap-plication program. Therefore, a data structure that represents a model of the environment is introduced. This extra interface reduces the complexity of the ap-plication and enables reuse of the application code. Finally, an application of the presented concepts is described in a case study featuring a mobile robot