StarL: Toward a web interface for distributed robotics

Most first-time users find it complicated to use the StarL programming framework, especially when they have little experience with Java. The major challenges for programming distributed robotic applications are (1) the learning curve for Java, (2) setting up the StarL development environment, and (3) learning curve for effectively using the Java functions in StarL. We therefore introduce the StarL web interface that provides a more user-friendly access to the StarL programming framework while emphasizing more on the StarL high-level coordination of distributed robots. The StarL web interface enables researchers to implement their applications on distributed robots in the StarL high-level language, run the project and then plot the experiment data for analyzing the robot's traces. The main contribution of this thesis is the user-friendly interface with syntax highlighting and data visualization of the robots' traces obtained through simulation. A Formation example application will illustrate the many aspects of the StarL web interface.Ope

Programming platform for distributed robotics: primitives and portability

The Stabilizing Robotics Language (StarL) programming framework aims to simplify development of distributed robotic applications by providing programming abstractions and building blocks for communication, motion control and coordination between robots. It has been used to develop applications such as formation control, automatic intersection protocol, and distributed collaborative search. In this thesis, we introduce the programming abstractions as StarL primitives that are platform independent and useful across hardware platforms, resulting in portability. We first introduce the primitives as building blocks to easily develop, simulate and debug distributed robotic applications in StarL. Then, we discuss the design of the StarL framework which enables us to achieve portability of robot programs across hardware platforms. Thus, the same application program, say, for formation control, can now be ported and deployed on multiple, heterogeneous robotic platforms. We evaluate the design of these new features by simulating several applications