Software Engineering for Robotics - The RoboStar Technology
Ana Cavalcanti
Professor, University of York
In the design of robotic systems, often, state machines are drawn to convey
overall ideas; they are used as a basis to program tool-specific
simulations. The simulation code, written in general or proprietary
programming languages, is, however, the only early account of the robotic
system. We present a modern approach to design that supports automatic
generation of simulation code that is guaranteed to be correct, and
complements the use of simulation with model checking, theorem proving, and
systematic testing. This approach, under development by the RoboStar group
(https://www.cs.york.ac.uk/robostar/), uses two domain-specific languages
supported by a tool. RoboChart is an event-based notation for
design; RoboSim [2] is a matching cycle-based diagrammatic notation for
simulation. Using RoboTool, we can create RoboChart and RoboSim models, and
generate mathematical models and tests automatically.