ZTL: Lightweight Communication Patterns for HRI

Human-robot interaction (HRI) programmers often struggle with operating older robot hardware due to the short support period provided by manufacturers and difficulties integrating modern software solutions. This paper introduces the ZTL Task Library (ZTL), a lightweight communication framework and protocol designed to decouple robot hardware from the operating platform via socket communication, thereby increasing robot lifetime. We present a task-based communication protocol facilitating the co-design of robot behaviours with non-programming experts. Our approach has been shown across different platforms to effectively mitigate incompatibilities between middlewares, simplifying control and usability, allowing for simultaneous addressing of multiple devices.