Building Blocks for Control System Software

Software implementation of control laws for industrial systems seem straightforward, but is not. The computer code stemming from the control laws is mostly not more than 10 to 30% of the total. A building-block approach for embedded control system development is advocated to enable a fast and efficient software design process.\ud We have developed the CTJ library, Communicating Threads for Java¿,\ud resulting in fundamental elements for creating building blocks to implement communication using channels. Due to the simulate-ability, our building block method is suitable for a concurrent engineering design approach. Furthermore, via a stepwise refinement process, using verification by simulation, the implementation trajectory can be done efficiently

Software for Embedded Control Systems

The research of our team deals with the realization of control schemes on digital computers. As such the emphasis is on embedded control software implementation. Applications are in the field of mechatronic devices, using a mechatronic design approach (the integrated and optimal design of a mechanical system and its embedded control system). The ultimate goal is to support the application developer (i.e. mechatronic design engineer) such that implementing control software according to ðo it the first time right¿ becomes business as usual

Behavioral types in programming languages

A recent trend in programming language research is to use behav- ioral type theory to ensure various correctness properties of large- scale, communication-intensive systems. Behavioral types encompass concepts such as interfaces, communication protocols, contracts, and choreography. The successful application of behavioral types requires a solid understanding of several practical aspects, from their represen- tation in a concrete programming language, to their integration with other programming constructs such as methods and functions, to de- sign and monitoring methodologies that take behaviors into account. This survey provides an overview of the state of the art of these aspects, which we summarize as the pragmatics of behavioral types

A Survey of Languages for Specifying Dynamics: A Knowledge Engineering Perspective

A number of formal specification languages for knowledge-based systems has been developed. Characteristics for knowledge-based systems are a complex knowledge base and an inference engine which uses this knowledge to solve a given problem. Specification languages for knowledge-based systems have to cover both aspects. They have to provide the means to specify a complex and large amount of knowledge and they have to provide the means to specify the dynamic reasoning behavior of a knowledge-based system. We focus on the second aspect. For this purpose, we survey existing approaches for specifying dynamic behavior in related areas of research. In fact, we have taken approaches for the specification of information systems (Language for Conceptual Modeling and TROLL), approaches for the specification of database updates and logic programming (Transaction Logic and Dynamic Database Logic) and the generic specification framework of abstract state machine

Open Programming Language Interpreters

Context: This paper presents the concept of open programming language interpreters and the implementation of a framework-level metaobject protocol (MOP) to support them. Inquiry: We address the problem of dynamic interpreter adaptation to tailor the interpreter's behavior on the task to be solved and to introduce new features to fulfill unforeseen requirements. Many languages provide a MOP that to some degree supports reflection. However, MOPs are typically language-specific, their reflective functionality is often restricted, and the adaptation and application logic are often mixed which hardens the understanding and maintenance of the source code. Our system overcomes these limitations. Approach: We designed and implemented a system to support open programming language interpreters. The prototype implementation is integrated in the Neverlang framework. The system exposes the structure, behavior and the runtime state of any Neverlang-based interpreter with the ability to modify it. Knowledge: Our system provides a complete control over interpreter's structure, behavior and its runtime state. The approach is applicable to every Neverlang-based interpreter. Adaptation code can potentially be reused across different language implementations. Grounding: Having a prototype implementation we focused on feasibility evaluation. The paper shows that our approach well addresses problems commonly found in the research literature. We have a demonstrative video and examples that illustrate our approach on dynamic software adaptation, aspect-oriented programming, debugging and context-aware interpreters. Importance: To our knowledge, our paper presents the first reflective approach targeting a general framework for language development. Our system provides full reflective support for free to any Neverlang-based interpreter. We are not aware of any prior application of open implementations to programming language interpreters in the sense defined in this paper. Rather than substituting other approaches, we believe our system can be used as a complementary technique in situations where other approaches present serious limitations

Frameworks for Protocol Implementation

This paper reports on the development of a catalogue of frameworks for protocol implementation. Frameworks are software structures developed for a specific application domain, which can be re-used in the implementation of various different concrete systems in this domain. By using frameworks we aim at increasing the effectiveness of the protocol implementation process. We assume that whenever protocols are directly implemented from their specifications one may be able to increase the correctness and the speed of the implementation process, and the maintainability of the resulting system. We argue that frameworks should match the concepts underlying the techniques used for specifying protocols. Consequently, we couple the development of frameworks for protocol implementation to the investigation of the different alternative design models for protocol specification. This paper presents the approach we have been using to develop frameworks, and illustrates this approach with an example of framework

Modeling Adaptation with Klaim

In recent years, it has been argued that systems and applications, in order to deal with their increasing complexity, should be able to adapt their behavior according to new requirements or environment conditions. In this paper, we present an investigation aiming at studying how coordination languages and formal methods can contribute to a better understanding, implementation and use of the mechanisms and techniques for adaptation currently proposed in the literature. Our study relies on the formal coordination language Klaim as a common framework for modeling some well-known adaptation techniques: the IBM MAPE-K loop, the Accord component-based framework for architectural adaptation, and the aspect- and context-oriented programming paradigms. We illustrate our approach through a simple example concerning a data repository equipped with an automated cache mechanism

Expression-based aliasing for OO-languages

Alias analysis has been an interesting research topic in verification and optimization of programs. The undecidability of determining whether two expressions in a program may reference to the same object is the main source of the challenges raised in alias analysis. In this paper we propose an extension of a previously introduced alias calculus based on program expressions, to the setting of unbounded program executions s.a. infinite loops and recursive calls. Moreover, we devise a corresponding executable specification in the K-framework. An important property of our extension is that, in a non-concurrent setting, the corresponding alias expressions can be over-approximated in terms of a notion of regular expressions. This further enables us to show that the associated K-machinery implements an algorithm that always stops and provides a sound over-approximation of the "may aliasing" information, where soundness stands for the lack of false negatives. As a case study, we analyze the integration and further applications of the alias calculus in SCOOP. The latter is an object-oriented programming model for concurrency, recently formalized in Maude; K-definitions can be compiled into Maude for execution