Abstract: In this paper, we address the problem of the synthesis of controller programs for a variety of robotics and manufacturing tasks. The problem we choose for test and illustrative purposes is the standard ``Walking Machine Problem,'' a representative instance of a real "hybrid" problem with both logical/discrete and continuous properties and strong mutual influence without any reasonable separation. We aim to produce a ``compiler technology'' for this class of problems in a manner analogous to the development of the so-called ``Silicon Compilers'' for the VLSI technology. To cope with the difficulties inherent to the problem, we resort to a novel approach that combines many key ideas from a variety of disciplines: namely, ``Discrete Event Supervisory Systems'', Petri Nets approaches and ``Temporal Logic''.

Notes: Will appear in the 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Nagoya, Japan