School of Computing

Visual process-oriented programming for robotics

Jonathan Simpson and Christian L. Jacobsen

In Peter H. Welch, Susan Stepney, Fiona A.C. Polack, Frederick R.M. Barnes, Alistair A. McEwan, Gardner S. Stiles, Jan F. Broenink, and Adam T. Sampson, editors, Communicating Process Architectures 2008, volume 66 of Concurrent Systems Engineering, pages 182-196, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2008. WoTUG, IOS Press.

Abstract

When teaching concurrency, using a process-oriented language, it is often introduced through a visual representation of programs in the form of process network diagrams. These diagrams allow the design of and abstract reasoning about programs, consisting of concurrently executing communicating processes, without needing any syntactic knowledge of the eventual implementation language. Process network diagrams are usually drawn on paper or with general-purpose diagramming software, meaning the program must be implemented as syntactically correct program code before it can be run. This paper presents POPed, an introductory parallel programming tool leveraging process network diagrams as a visual language for the creation of process-oriented programs. Using only visual layout and connection of pre-created components, the user can explore process orientation without knowledge of the underlying programming language, enabling a "processes first" approach to parallel programming. POPed has been targeted specifically at basic robotic control, to provide a context in which introductory parallel programming can be naturally motivated.

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Bibtex Record

@inproceedings{2916,
author = {Jonathan Simpson and Christian L. Jacobsen},
title = {Visual Process-oriented Programming for Robotics},
month = {September},
year = {2008},
pages = {182-196},
keywords = {determinacy analysis, Craig interpolants},
note = {},
doi = {},
url = {http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2008/2916},
    publication_type = {inproceedings},
    submission_id = {5100_1243431992},
    ISBN = {978-1-58603-907-3},
    booktitle = {Communicating Process Architectures 2008},
    editor = {Peter H. Welch and Susan Stepney and Fiona A.C. Polack and Frederick R.M. Barnes and Alistair A. McEwan and Gardner S. Stiles and Jan F. Broenink and Adam T. Sampson},
    volume = {66},
    series = {Concurrent Systems Engineering},
    address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
    organization = {WoTUG},
    publisher = {IOS Press},
    ISSN = {1383-7575},
    refereed = {yes},
}

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