In behavior-oriented robotics, the control of a system is distributed over various processes or behaviors running in virtual parallel. However, the assignment of processing power to different processes is a non-trivial task. Existing approaches to this problem, like rate-monotonic scheduling, focus on the fulfilment of deadlines, i.e., upper time-bounds. For behavioral control, the periodicity of processes is also of interest. Here, a novel scheduling algorithm for behavioral processes at different time-scales is introduced, which ensures time-optimal and periodically balanced execution.

The so-called RoboGuard is a mobile security device which is tightly integrated into the existing surveillance framework developed and marketed by Quadrox, a Belgian SME. RoboGuards are semi-autonomous mobile robots providing video streams via wireless Intranets to existing watchguard systems, supplemented by various basic and optional behaviors. RoboGuards fill several market-niches. Especially, they are a serious alternative to the standard approach of using closed circuit television for surveillance. Low production cost, user friendliness, and support for easy add-on functionalities were important design targets, which were achieved by following the AI paradigm of behavior-oriented robotics.