T.R.A.M.P.
    (Toolkit for Rapid Autonomous Mobile robot Prototyping)
     
    The TRAMP program is a toolkit designed to assist engineers/scientists with the initial programming of a mobile robot.  It will allow them to concentrate on the requirements of the robot, and carefully structure the program which is to be created, leaving the user only simple, small chunks, of C code to write.  Essentially, the TRAMP program provides a mobile robot program shell, which the user can manipulate as required, and then use for initial tests on the robot.  The program is entirely written in java, allowing complete platform independence.

    The user can either start the TRAMP program with a set of requirements, from which the program will suggest a range of possible hardware options, or alternatively, the user can start with a given set of modules and allow the program to assist with design and creation of the software.

    The program will model and test the structure of the code using  Petri nets , which can graphically represent the code for each module.

    Here the Petri nets are not only used for basic testing and modelling of the executable C code, once the user has created the C code which must be executed each time a transition fires, the Petri net itself is compiled into C code, and executed.

    This approach forces the user to write structured code, and also creates small, easy to manage modules which can be created entirely independently of one another.

    For more information:   email , alternatively, visit my  slide show .