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A runtime system for logical-space programming

Published: 13 April 2015 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper we introduce logical-space programming, a spatial computing paradigm where programs have access to a logical space model, i.e., names and explicit relations over such names, while the runtime system is in charge of manipulating the physical space. Mobile devices such as autonomous vehicles are equipped with sensors and actuators that provide means for computation to react upon spatial information and produce effects over the environment. The spatial behavior of these systems is commonly specified at the physical level, e.g., GPS coordinates. This puts the responsibility for the correct specification of spatial behaviors in the hands of the programmer. We propose a new paradigm named logical-space programming, where the programmer specifies the spatial behavior at a logical level while the runtime system is in charge of managing the physical behaviors. We provide a brief explanation of the logical-space computing semantics and describe a logical-space runtime system using bigraphs as logical models and bigActors as computing entities. The physical entities are modeled as polygons in a geometrical space. We demonstrate the use of logical-space programming for specifying and controlling the spatial behaviors of vehicles and sensors performing an environmental monitoring mission. The field test consisted of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and GPS drifters used to survey an area supposedly affected by illegal bilge dumping.

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cover image ACM Conferences
SWEC '15: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Swarm at the Edge of the Cloud
April 2015
59 pages
ISBN:9781450335959
DOI:10.1145/2756755
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 13 April 2015

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  1. mobile
  2. robotics
  3. spatial computing

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CPS Week '15
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CPS Week '15: Cyber Physical Systems Week 2015
April 13 - 16, 2015
Washington, Seattle

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