proposal/p.tex

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   9 \title{Research Internship Proposal}
  10 \date{\printdate{22.9.2016}}
  11 \author{Mart Lubbers (s4109503)}
  12
  13 \begin{document}
  14 \pagenumbering{gobble}
  15 \thispagestyle{empty}
  16 \clearpage
  17 \maketitle
  18 \subsection*{Practical information}
  19 \begin{table}[h]
  20         \centering
  21         \begin{tabu}{p{8em}X}
  22                 \toprule
  23                 \textbf{Start date} & September 2016\\
  24                 \midrule
  25                 \textbf{End date} & February 2017\\
  26                 \midrule
  27                 \textbf{Research group} & Software Science\\
  28                 \midrule
  29                 \textbf{Supervisors} & Rinus Plasmeijer, Pieter Koopman\\
  30                 \midrule
  31                 \textbf{Topics} & Functional programming, compilers, iTasks, embedded systems\\
  32                 \midrule
  33                 \textbf{Master courses already taken} &
  34                         Advanced Programming, Automated Reasoning,
  35                         Compiler Construction, Design of Embedded Systems,
  36                         ICT in a different culture, Model Checking,
  37                         Natural Computing, Research Seminar Software Science,
  38                         Testing Techniques\\
  39                 \bottomrule
  40         \end{tabu}
  41 \end{table}
  42
  43 \subsection*{Description of the research activities}
  44 In \emph{Task Oriented Programming} (TOP) a program is built out of pieces of
  45 work called \emph{tasks}~\cite{achten_introduction_2015}. Tasks differ from
  46 function in the way that they return a result. A task's return value can change
  47 over time. Task exist in many forms and they can be composed sequentially and
  48 in parallel. Some possible tasks are asking for user input via a web browser,
  49 setting up a TCP connection to another server or combining several tasks. At
  50 the moment there are several types of leaf tasks. A leaf task is a task that
  51 does not consist of tasks itself. Examples of leaf tasks are  the so called
  52 editors.
  53
  54 This proposal describes the effort to add another type of leaf task that
  55 focusses on microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are often not powerful
  56 enough to run a full-fledged task server and therefore there is the need to
  57 introduce special microcontroller tasks. Effort for this is already made by by
  58 the department~\cite{koopman_tasks_2016}. However, communication between the
  59 \emph{mTask} and the iTasks system is still lacking and exactly that will be the
  60 goal of the project. This requires adding a new type of leaf task that allows
  61 the user to run \emph{mTasks} on microcontrollers. The leaf task should
  62 abstract away from communication techniques and it should be relatively easy to
  63 add techniques. Techniques that are interesting to experiment with is Serial
  64 communication, Bluetooth, \textsc{WiFi}, \textsc{GSM} and \textsc{LoRa}.
  65
  66 Similar work has been done in the department on distributing tasks to so-called
  67 \emph{node-servers}~\cite{oortgiese_task_2016}. It might be possible that the
  68 same communication strategy can be used with a slimmed down taskserver on a
  69 microcontroller.
  70
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  73 \end{document}