A Middleware Bridge Between MOOS and LCM

Integrating multiple semi-redundant open source packages for a single target application can be challenging. Such is the case with robotic middleware software such as ROS, MOOS, and LCM which each have fairly independent support communities. Each package provides unique strengths, and lead to a more capable architecture if both can be included in the design. In this paper, we detail an open source software package that provides a bridge between two of the common robotic middleware communities, MOOS and LCM. This application forwards desired communication packets between MOOS and LCM communities and is configured with an xml file at runtime without requiring source code recompilation. Our target application is an unmanned underwater vehicle (Icefin) which uses LCM as a core communication architecture, but must also support the advanced and experimental autonomy available with the MOOS IvP Helm application. Herein, we will present the design of the MOOS-LCM bridge package as well as our example target application. The software package developed here will be provided open-source to the research community and we hope this will advance what is capable in autonomous systems by lowering the barriers between these communities.