A personal robot for mechatronic application programmers. The role of automatic storage reclamation and programming languages in the lifetime of a safe mechatronic system

Author

Brega, Roberto ; Wullschleger, Felix H.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Robotics, Eidgenossische Tech. Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland

Volume

2

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

905

Abstract

A software system can be called a safe-system with respect to dynamic memory, when it supports only strong-typing and it doesn´t allow for the manual disposal of dynamic memory. The first aspect guarantees that untyped, potentially dangerous operations are caught by the compiler or by run-time checks. The second issue is solved by the utilisation of an automatic memory reclamation scheme, i.e., a garbage collector. We present the implementation of these strategies in the real-time operating system XO/2, and how they have contributed to the realisation of the Mobile Mail Distribution System MoPS, developed at the Institute of Robotics of the ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Keywords

mechatronics; mobile robots; operating systems (computers); program compilers; programming languages; real-time systems; storage management; MoPS; Mobile Mail Distribution System; XO/2 real-time operating system; automatic memory reclamation scheme; automatic storage reclamation; compiler; dynamic memory; garbage collector; mechatronic application programmers; personal robot; programming languages; run-time checks; safe mechatronic system; safe-system; strong-typing; Application software; Mechatronics; Mobile robots; Operating systems; Postal services; Programming profession; Real time systems; Robotics and automation; Runtime; Software systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, 2001. Proceedings. 2001 IEEE/ASME International Conference on

Conference_Location

Como

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6736-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AIM.2001.936788

Filename

936788