Concurrent programming for the control of hexapod walking

Ada95 is a powerful language with a great number of original constructions. Learning these constructions requires the finalization of projects that are both interesting and motivating for students, as well as the coverage of the different constructions during the project. Moreover, the field of mobile robotics is one that requires real-time programming and appropriate software architectures. More particularly, legged robots offer a real challenge as regards autonomy and the coordination of movements of the different legs. This field proves fruitful for the definition of projects on concurrent programming. The present paper describes such a project about an architecture for an omnidirectional legged robot. In a resolutely object-oriented approach, the project helps to teach the main constructions of the Ada language. Among others, it deals with child units, generics, tagged types and type extension, tasking, protected objects, family entries, asynchronous transfer of control, discriminants, etc. Numerous extensions can be considered within this project.