In the Titan project we applied a new approach to prototyping mobile robots by choosing tools which are commonly used by leading aerospace manufacturers and many other industries. We have gained substantial experience when using the LabVIEW real-time programming environment coupled with the industrial quality data acquisition cards, both are made by National Instruments. The methodology of virtual instruments software tools combined with the graphical programming environment was found to be very efficient for interactive cycles of design and testing, which are at the core of robotics prototyping.