| This thesis presents two declarative DSLs for robotics programming: Dance and HPorter. These two languages focus on robotic control and process control, respectively, but both benefiting from functional reactive programming (FRP). The first language Dance provides a proper level of abstraction for describing humanoid movements based on the common morphology of humanoids. It applies a number of concepts and paradigms in programming languages design and implementation, including type systems, non-strict semantics, higher-order functions and FRP. It is safe and expressive, and at the same time scalable and hardware independent. The second language HPorter helps to compose processes in a real-time operating system running on a parallel computer. Using arrows (a generalization of monads), HPorter allows programmers to "wire together" processes in a manner analogous to a signal-processing application. In addition, HPorter's event-driven reactivity, based on FRP, permits reconfiguration of these tightly-coupled processes at any time, thus providing a degree of dynamism that is critical in many applications. |
