While specialized hardware description languages allow for maximum capability and efficiency in a design automation system, the use of a general purpose language in the same role can make the system more available or more available or more practical for a larger set of users. This project demonstrates the use of ADA* for the description and simulation of small digital signal processing systems. Building on conventions and primitives proposed by Denyer and Renshaw, a simple subsystem was described in ADA and then tested with a small simulator also written in ADA. * ADA is a trademark of the United States Department of Defense - ADA Joint Program Office (AJPO).

This thesis presents an automated approach to developing software that performs single event upset (SEU) detection in distributed Ada systems. Faults considered are those that fall in the single event upset (SEU) category. SEUs may cause information corruption leading to a change in program flow or causing a program to execute an infinite loop. Two techniques that detect the presence of these upsets are described. The implementation of these techniques is discussed in relation to the structure of Ada software systems and exploit the block structure of Ada. A program has been written to automatically modify Ada application software systems to contain these upset detection mechanisms. The program, Software Modifier for Upset Detection (SMUD), requires little interactive information from a programmer and relies mainly on SMUD directives that are inserted into the application software prior to the modification process. A full description of this automated procedure is included. The upset detection mechanisms have been incorporated into a distributed computer system model employing the MIL-STD-1553B communications protocol. Ada is used as the simulation environment to exercise and verify the protocol. The model used as a testbed for the upset detection mechanisms consists of two parts: the hardware model and the software implementation of the 1553B communications protocol. The hardware environment is described in detail, along with a discussion on the 1553B protocol. The detection techniques have been tested and verified at the high level using computer simulations. A testing methodology is also presented. / Master of Science

This thesis describes the design and the implementation of an Ada library for positional board games. The library consists of general software modules that use some concepts from a model of Positional Board Games presented in [Antoy 87]. This thesis shows that general software modules based on the mathematical concept of board can be built and used by any positional board game program. Furthermore, this thesis describes the data types used in the modules and presents informal and formal specifications of the operations on the data types. It also describes the implementation of the data types; presents the algorithms implementing the operations and shows how the library can be used on two positional board programs and justifies the claim of generality and simplicity of the model in [Antoy 87]. The programming language Ada is used to express the formal specifications and to code the software modules. / Master of Science

A robust algorithm has been developed to do data processing accurately, removing the need for a radio signal to be imbedded for locational accuracy. This, consequently eliminates the signposts installation and maintenance costs and worries. A sensitivity analysis of the algorithm using a real life data file revealed that the matching process change with changes in system parameters, adding credibility to the technique used for matching in the algorithm. Next, several new programs have been added to bring together a software package yielding management reports and plots. These reports and plots are tremendous decision aiding tools and since the programs are interactive, the package is easy to use. A user's manual has also been developed. Finally, an implementation of the Automated Data Acquisition System at TRT, Norfolk, is discussed. A systematic approach to the software development to meet the needs of the transit property has been conceptualized and specific software developed. A discussion of the details of this software development has been addressed, too. In essence, Automatic Data Acquisition systems research at Virginia Tech has now evolved to such a stage that with a little "tuning" of hardware & the associated software, a very powerful and versatile automated data collection and management aiding tool will be available for economical widespread implementation. / Master of Science

In a society that is increasingly dependent upon computing machinery, the issues associated with the correct functioning of that machinery are of crucial interest. The consequences of erroneous behavior of computers are dire with the worst case scenario being, conceivably, global thermonuclear war. Therefore, development of procedures and tools which can be used to increase the confidence of the correctness of the software that controls the world's computers is of vital importance. The Department of Defense (DoD) is in the process of adopting a standard computer language for the development of software. This language is called Ada¹. One of the major features of Ada is that it supports concurrent programming via its "task" compilation unit. There are not, however, any automated tools to aid in locating errors in the tasks. The design for such a tool is presented. The tool is named AdaTAD and is a debugger for programs written in Ada. The features of AdaTAD are specific to the problems of concurrent programming. The requirements of AdaTAD are derived from the literature. AdaTAD is, however, a unique tool designed using Ada as a program description language. When AdaTAD is implemented in Ada it becomes portable among all environments which support the Ada language. This offers the advantage that a single debugger is portable to many different machine architectures. Therefore, separate debuggers are not necessary for each implementation of Ada. Moreover, since AdaTAD is designed to allow debugging of tasks, AdaTAD will also support debugging in a distributed environment. That means that, if the tasks of a user's program are running on different computers in a distributed environment, the user is still able to use AdaTAD to debug the tasks as a single program. This feature is unique among automated debuggers. After the design is presented, several examples are offered to explain the operation of AdaTAD and to show that AdaTAD is useful in revealing the location of errors specific to concurrent programming. / Ph. D.

No abstract / Thesis (M.Sc.-Electronic Engineering)-University of Natal, 1992.

This thesis describes a visual programming language designed to describe and generate Ada program unit specifications. The author first describes the foundations for the work, and gives a brief introduction to some of the features of the language. Most of the thesis is dedicated to describing the visual representation for each portion of an Ada package specification. The BNF grammar of an Ada package specification is used as a basis for organization. By organizing the thesis via the package specification, all program unit specifications i.e., package, task, subprogram and generic specifications) are described and given a representation in the language. Toward the end of the thesis, the design and reference of a package specification is demonstrated in a hypothetical implementation. / Master of Science