Nasa has open sourced a batch of its software developed to build autonomous exploration robots.

The Coupled Layer Architecture for Robotic Autonomy (CLARAty) is used in the Mars rovers and other robotic devices. The software has been released under the JPL Open Source Licence. 

"CLARAty is an integrated framework for reusable robotics software," said Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the release notes.

"It defines interfaces for common robotic functionality and integrates multiple implementations of any given functionality. Examples of such capabilities include pose estimation, navigation, locomotion and planning."

The release includes 44 modules, over 100,000 lines of code, and will include three times as much in the future.

The modules include mechanism models for wheeled, legged and hybrid vehicles and APIs for generic digital and analogue I/O, cameras and motors.

The code was developed by Nasa's Ames Research Center, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Minnesota.