[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH1yUXd9krU]
Engineers from Lund University and Sun Microsystem have implemented a control system for an industrial robot entirely in Java! They have implemented a motion control system, and an application, for an ABB IRB 340 industrial robot entirely in real-time Java, using standard computer hardware, off-theshelf EtherCAT servo drives, and the Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 on Solaris 10.
This is the first robot control system implemented entirely in Java and executed on a certified virtual machine.
Up to now there has been a tradition to implement the timecritical parts in C, and other parts (such as operator interfaces) in Java or other languages. These guys have explored if using Java for low-level control is at all possible.
Java is Powerful! Long live Open Source!