Print Email Facebook Twitter The MetaForma Language: A DSL to Program the ATRON Self-Reconfigurable Robot Title The MetaForma Language: A DSL to Program the ATRON Self-Reconfigurable Robot Author Van Koppen, W. Contributor Visser, E. (mentor) Faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Department Software Technology Date 2013-03-21 Abstract Self-reconfigurable modular robots are mechatronic devices that have the capability to modify their own shape. They have a promising potential as a result of being able to solve a wider range of problems. However, programming self-reconfigurable robots is in general a difficult task. General-purpose languages like ANSI-C or Java provide only general abstractions that do not facilitate tackling difficult issues such as distribution, unreliable hardware, and dynamically evolving communication topology. We believe that a domain-specific language is needed to be able to program robot behavior on a higher, more productive level. Existing DSLs and control approaches have been developed in the past, but were designed to solve problems specific to certain scenarios. In this work, a domain analysis is used to identify and define concepts in existing approaches. Based on this, a prototype for a new DSL is implemented in the language-workbench Spoofax. The prototype is called MetaForma and comprises a compiler with Eclipse IDE support and a static runtime-system. The runtime system acts as an abstraction on top of the ATRON robot and the USSR robot simulator. The USSR simulator is used to conduct experiments on generated Java code that simulates the behavior of the ATRON robot and justifies claims for robustness. The contribution of MetaForma is twofold. First, it supports shape-transformations and locomotion of small ATRON ensembles. Second, it supports locomotion methods for large-scale ATRON ensembles, that were published in earlier work but not implemented in a language before. Although not all solutions are yet implemented in the MetaForma runtime-system, and it currently only runs in simulation, we believe that MetaForma is a powerful DSL solution for the ATRON robot. Subject self-rconfigurable robotATRONDSLglobal to localSpoofaxcode generation To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:35b15b16-5db8-467a-be07-dd30bae3d808 Embargo date 2013-03-21 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2013 Van Koppen, W. Files PDF thesis.pdf 11.77 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:35b15b16-5db8-467a-be07-dd30bae3d808/datastream/OBJ/view