This paper proposes to design a heterogeneous modular mobile robot control system based on the principle of full functionality of the modules. The full functionality of a mechatronic device is the ability to perform its goal function using only its own facilities for executing instructions from an external control system. The external control system is a module-supervisor of modular robot in relation to the other modules of the robot. This module forms the control goal and verifies only the result of its achievement by executive module, but doesn't control the task execution process by the module. The full functionality of robot modules is achieved by designing each module as a full-featured electronic or mechatronic device with its own the information-measuring and control system that containing all necessary components: sensors, computing devices and actuators. The use of a network principle of the robot's information-measuring and control system construction and the Ethernet standards provides the capability of direct inter-module information interaction and the ability to rapidly form and alter the structure of the robot directly on the scene of the works and during the works themselves.

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THE PURPOSE of this article is to analyze existing and promising methods of dynamic reprogramming suitable for use in a mobile robot with a modular control system architecture. The article briefly describes functional-modular architecture of the control system (CS) of a mobile robot implementing distributed computing, which makes it possible to ensure the real-time operation of the modules’ CS even when it’s built using low-power embedded systems. The article describes features of 4 different methods according to 6 criteria: applicability on different embedded systems, the amount of operating and program memory required, the speed of calculations, the theoretical complexity of creating an implementation of the method, the theoretical complexity of using the method by the end user (tuner), the flexibility of the method being created. The results of this study are given in form of recommendations for the application of the considered methods in different environments and purposes.