Concurrent programming and robotics
Many current robot systems exhibit a significant degree of concurrency, doing many activities in parallel. Future sensor-based robots are expected to exhibit even more concurrency. Programs to control such robots are characterized by the need to wait for external events and/or handle interrupts, deal with concurrent activities, synchronize actions with external events, and communicate with other robots and processes. In this paper, the authors focus on the advantages of concurrent programming for robotics and suggest that a general-purpose language with the right facilities is a good vehicle for robot programming. In this context they discuss Concurrent C, an upward-compatible extension of the C language that provides high-level concurrent programming facilities. They give an historical perspective of concurrent programming followed by a brief description of Concurrent C and how Concurrent C programs communicate with robots and devices. They show by examples how Concurrent C simplifies writing robot programs. Of specific interest are the process interaction and related interrupt handling facilities.
- Research Organization:
- AT and T Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5755069
- Journal Information:
- Int. J. Robot. Res.; (United States), Vol. 8:2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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