  This paper describes exploratory experiments to validate the possibility of
programming autonomous robots using an agent-oriented programming language.
Proper perception of the environment, by means of various types of sensors, and
timely reaction to external events, by means of effective actuators, are
essential to provide robots with a sufficient level of autonomy. The
agent-oriented programming paradigm is relevant with this respect because it
offers language-level abstractions to process events and to command actuators.
A recent agent-oriented programming language called Jadescript is presented in
this paper together with its new features specifically designed to handle
events. Exploratory experiments on a simple case-study application are
presented to show the validity of the proposed approach and to exemplify the
use of the language to program autonomous robots.
