Concurrent programming for the control of hexapod walking

Abstract

Ada95 is a powerful language with a great number of original constructions. Learning these constructions requires the finalization of projects that are both interesting and motivating for students, as well as the coverage of the different constructions during the project. Moreover, the field of mobile robotics is one that requires real-time programming and appropriate software architectures. More particularly, legged robots offer a real challenge as regards autonomy and the coordination of movements of the different legs. This field proves fruitful for the definition of projects on concurrent programming. The present paper describes such a project about an architecture for an omnidirectional legged robot. In a resolutely object-oriented approach, the project helps to teach the main constructions of the Ada language. Among others, it deals with child units, generics, tagged types and type extension, tasking, protected objects, family entries, asynchronous transfer of control, discriminants, etc. Numerous extensions can be considered within this project.

Deriving concurrent control software from behavioral specifications

“…Ada [5] has been used to implement a control program for a walking hexapod in an object-oriented manner, but mainly to provide a case study for Ada programming rather than to suggest Ada as a language for robotic control. WalkNet [6] is a framework for behavior-based modeling of walking systems.…”

Functional metamodels for systems and software

“…The functional metamodels are used to describe the control of the locomotion of a legged robot (figure 17), Thirion and Thiry (2002). The main blocks used to control this system are given by Figure 18.…”

Using Process Algebra to Validate Behavioral Aspects of Object-Oriented Models

“…The system used to illustrate the present approach is a control software whose role is to manage the locomotion function of an hexapod robot [12] (figure 2.a). A leg moves in a cyclic way between two positions aep (anterior extreme position) and pep (posterior extreme position) (figure 2.b).…”