Lulu P/XP colony simulator written in C

Lulu P/XP colony simulator library that allows one to import (as text file) a P colony or a P swarm (colony of P colonies) and simulate the transfer of simbolic objects.

The library can be included in any standalone C application and includes methods for modifying the contents of the P/XP colony, in order to interface a P/XP colony model with other applications.

A standalone P/XP colony simulation application is included in this package.

Requirements

• Compilers:
  • GCC - for simulations on a computer
  • AVR-GCC - for building a library that can be included in an AVR microcontroller application
• Kilolib - ONLY for AVR
• Lulu_C - Python 3 conversion script used to translate Lulu text input files to C source code
• Make - for an automated build process

The build process was tested on an up-to-date Linux distribution (ArchLinux). The build process should work on most unixes and on Windows using packages such as MinGW.

Usage

After installing all components and adjusting the corresponding paths (using Makefile parameters), simply execute the following list of commands, in the project folder:

mkdir build build_hex

make

If no errors are reported during compilation, the build folders should contain, among others, the following files:

• build
  • lulu.a
  • simulator
• build_hex
  • lulu.a
  • lulu_debug.a

simulator can be executed as a PC application and will run the P colony specified in the LULU_INSTANCE_FILE Makefile parameter, by default the increment P colony.

The other build results are static libraries that can be linked to another application and allow it to control the execution process and the contents of the P/XP colony. The build_hex folder contains static libraries that can be linked to an AVR micro-controller application, such as a Kilobot controller.

Configuration

Debug level

This parameter controls the verbosity of the Lulu library and the simulator application. The accepted values are

• 0 (DEBUG)
• 1 (INFO)
• 2 (RELEASE) - no messages are printed

For micro-controller applications, the buildsystem will create 2 versions of the library, with/without message printing in order to simplify the build process for the host application.

API Documentation

More detailed information can be found on the project documentation page.

Authors

Andrei George Florea, Cătălin Buiu

Department of Automatic Control And Systems Engineering,

Politehnica University of Bucharest

Bucharest, Romania.