A Motion Description Language for Hybrid System Programming

One of the important but often overlooked challenges in motion control has to do with the transfer of theoretical tools into software that will allow an autonomous system to interact effectively with the physical world. In a situation familiar to most control practitioners, motion control programs are often machine-specific and are not reusable, even when the underlying algorithm does not require changes. These considerations point out the need for a formal, general-purpose programming language that would allow one to write motion control programs, incorporating both switching logic and differential equations. The promise held by such a software tool has motivated a research program on the so-called Motion Description Language (MDL) and its extended version MDLe, put forth as deviceindependent programming languages that can accommodate hybrid controllers, multi-system interactions and agent-to-agent communications. This paper details the syntax, functionality and expressive power of MDLe as well as a software infrastructure that implements the language. We include a set of programming examples that demonstrate the capabilities of MDLe, together with the results of their execution on a group of mobile robots.

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