DISTRIBUTED ROBOT PROGRAMMING.

An analysis is made of the main features of a software system oriented toward the automation of mechanical assemblies. Such a system is under development for a distributed computing architecture, based on a three-level abstraction both hardware and software. The design is based on the following guidelines: the virtual machine must manage both single and complex functional activities, each one corresponding to a physical or abstract process; it must allow interaction between operator and both sensors and motors with regard to communication of status informations and possible error conditions; finally it has to offer the basic primitives for coordinating concurrent processes corresponding to the various manipulator activities.