A distributed computing environment for robotics

Abstract

Meglos is a multiprocessor operating system that is ideal for real-time applications. It provides the user with a distributed programming environment for developing, running, and debugging application programs. Meglos allows a single application to span several processors. Further, unrelated programs may run independently of each other on the same processor. A simple, yet powerful, mechanism for communications between programs is provided. With the current hardware configuration, up to twelve Motorola 68000 Multibus computer systems and a DEC VAX host running the UNIX operating system can be connected via the S/NET interconnect. Meglos exhibits communications latencies of 750 μsec, sufficiently small for most real-time applications.