Ulrik Pagh Schultz

Currently (2005-) associate professor (lektor) at Maersk McKinney Moeller Institute of Production Technology (MIP) at University of Southern Denmark, in Odense, Denmark. I am co-director of the Modular Robotics Lab, member of the Morphing Production Lines project and a member of the Software Engineering and Technology (SWEAT) group.

Formerly (2000-2005) research associate professor (forskningslektor) at DAIMI (the department of computer science at Aarhus University), in Aarhus, Denmark. While at DAIMI, I was a member of the Object-Oriented Software Systems group, manager of the B&O+OO project funded by ISIS, and a member of the PalCom project.

Formerly (1997-2000) PhD student in the Compose Group (now reincarnated as the Phoenix project) of IRISA , at the University of Rennes I, Bretagne, France. My Thesis advisor was Charles Consel.

Formerly (1991-1997) Masters student at DAIMI, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Research Interests

• Robotics (software engineering and programming language design). I have just recently started working with robotics, but I find it to be an excellent domain for doing advanced research in programming languages: interesting applications, plenty of constraints, has to really work, etc. I am co-directing the Modular Robotics Lab and I am a member of the Morphing Production Lines project. I am the maintainer of the USSR simulator for self-reconfigurable, modular robots.
• Domain-specific languages (see robotics). I've done a bit of work in this direction before in the context of pervasive computing, but I am now focusing on robotics as the domain. The goal is the development of domain-specific languages for controlling the ATRON (and Odin and others) [self-]reconfigurable robot. In general, my interest in domain-specific languages is as a means to provide better software engineering practices.
• Partial evaluation and object-oriented programming. Specifically, the former applied to the latter, which was the subject of my PhD thesis. I focus on the Java language, and on consolidating partial evaluation with object-oriented concepts. There are some papers describing some of the work that I've done in this area, accessible below. Specifically, I work with partial evaluation of imperative languages, object-oriented programming, design patterns and object component architectures. This research area is not currently in my focus, but I expect to go back here once I have developed an extensive suite of robotics-oriented software that needs specialization. (In terms of teaching, I make use of simple template-based code generation techniques as a pathway to start talking these more advanced forms of code generation.)
• Java in embedded systems.
  • Object-oriented programming for low-end embedded systems. I've worked on the JEPES project (see LCTES'03 paper below). I would like to develop a new compiler based on the same principles, for example with the ATRON modules as a target, but find myself caught up in too many other interesting projects.
  • JavaCard. SmartCards are becoming more and more popular, and Java is still an option for programming these devices. However, resources (processor power and memory) are very limited. I've investigated code compression for such devices (see TOPLAS'00 paper below).
• Block structure. Block structure stands at the base of most modern programming languages. Lambda-lifting is a well-known transformation that removes block-structure, making programs flat. The inverse transformation, dubbed lambda-dropping, restores program nesting and makes use of the lexical scope thus created. For more information, see TCS'00 paper below.

Teaching

Courses at MMMI:

• SCM - Scientific Methods, 1st quarter fall 2009
• SSE04 - Model-Based Processes & Systems, 4th quarter spring 2008
• SSE05 - Advanced topics in Software Engineering, 3rd quarter spring 2008.
• SSE01 - Introduction to Software Systems Engineering, 1st quarter fall 2007

Publications (peer-reviewed or not, allowed by publisher to be on-line, by topic)

• Robotics:
  • U.P. Schultz, M. Bordignon, K. Stoy, "Robust and Reversible Self-Reconfiguration", accepted for publication at IROS'09
  • R.F.M. Garcia, U.P. Schultz and K. Stoy, "On the Efficiency of Local and Global Communication in Modular Robots", accepted for publication at IROS'09
  • M. Bordignon, K. Stoy, U.P. Schultz, "A Virtual Machine-based Approach for Fast and Flexible Reprogramming of Modular Robots", in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2009). [PDF]
  • M. Bordignon, D.J. Christensen, K. Stoy, U.P. Schultz, "Elements of a Development Ecosystem for Modular Robot Applications", in Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Software Development and Integration in Robotics (SDIR2009). [PDF]
  • U.P. Schultz, M. Bordignon, D.J. Christensen, K. Stoy, "Spatial Computing with Labels", presented at Workshop on Spatial Computing (SCW) at Second IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems, Venice, Italy, October 20, 2008.
  • D.J. Christensen, M. Bordignon, U.P. Schultz, D. Shaikh, K. Stoy, Morphology Independent Learning in Modular Robots in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS2008). [PDF]
  • K. Stoy, D.J. Christensen, D. Brandt, M. Bordignon, U.P. Schultz, Exploit morphology to simplify docking of self-reconfigurable robots in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS2008). [PDF]
  • M. Bordignon, Lars L. Mikkelsen, U.P. Schultz, Implementing Flexible Parallelism for Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robots in Proceedings of the International Conference on Simulation, Modeling and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR2008). [PDF]
  • D.J. Christensen, D. Brandt, K. Stoy, U.P. Schultz, A Unified Simulator for Self-Reconfigurable Robots, in Proceedings of the IEEE/RJS 2008 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2008). [PDF]
  • U.P. Schultz, M. Bordignon, D. Christensen, K. Stoy. A Functional Language for Programming Self-Reconfigurable Robots. Presented at Trends in Functional Programming 2008 (TFP'08), published in preliminary proceedings. Final version [PDF].
  • U.P. Schultz. Distributed Control Diffusion: Towards a Flexible Programming Paradigm for Modular Robots. Presented at RoboComm'07 (First International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination). Final version [PDF].
  • D.J. Christensen, D. Brandt, U.P. Schultz, K. Stoy, Neighbor Detection and Crosstalk Elimination in Self-Reconfigurable Robots, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination (ROBOCOMM2007). [PDF]
  • U.P. Schultz, D. Christensen and K. Stoy. A Domain-Specific Language for Programming Self-Reconfigurable Robots. Presented at APGES 2007 (GPCE'07 workshop on Automatic Program Generation for Embedded Systems). Final version [PDF].
  • Nicolai Dvinge, Ulrik P. Schultz, and David Christensen. Roles and Self-Reconfigurable Robots. Presented at ROLES'07 (ECOOP'07 Workshop on Roles and Relationships in Object Oriented Programming, Multiagent Systems, and Ontologies Workshop). Final version [PDF].
• Partial evaluation and object-oriented languages:
  • U.P. Schultz. A Unification of Inheritanc and Automatic Program Specialization. Presented at GPCE'04, November 2004. Final version [PDF] (© Springer-Verlag).
  • H. Markmann Andersen and U.P. Schultz. Declarative Specialization for Object-Oriented-Program Specialization. Presented at PEPM'04, Aug 2004. Final version [PDF] (©ACM).
  • U.P. Schultz, Julia L. Lawall and Charles Consel. Automatic Program Specialization for Java. Appeared in July 2003 issue 25 of TOPLAS. Preprint of final version [PDF] (©ACM) (Preliminary version available as DAIMI PB-551 (Abstract) [PDF] [PS].)
  • U.P. Schultz. Object-Oriented Program Specialization: Aspects Into Aspects - Or Maybe Not? Position paper at WGP'01 (an ECOOP'01 workshop), 2001. [PS] or [PDF]
  • U. P. Schultz. Partial Evaluation for Class-Based Object-Oriented Languages. Presented at PADO-II, May 2000 (slides). Final version, PS or PDF (© Springer-Verlag). (Preliminary version available as DAIMI PB-552 (Abstract) [PDF] [PS].)
  • U.P. Schultz. Object-Oriented Software Engineering using Partial Evaluation. PhD thesis, University of Rennes, December 2000. English version available as IRISA PI 1395 (publication interne/tech report) in PS or PDF.
  • U. P. Schultz, Julia L. Lawall, Charles Consel. Specialization patterns. Appeared at ASE'00 (slides). Final version, PS or PDF (© IEEE). (Preliminary version available as a technical report.)
  • U. P. Schultz, J. L. Lawall, C. Consel and G. Muller. Towards Automatic Specialization of Java Programs. Appeared at ECOOP'99 (slides). Final version, PS or PDF (© Springer-Verlag). (Preliminary version also available as a technical report.)
  • U. P. Schultz. Black-box program specialization. Presented at WCOP'99 (slides). Final version, PS or PDF.
• Pervasive computing (domain-specific languages, virtual machines):
  • E.P. Lins and U.P. Schultz. Supporting Transparent Evolution of Component Interfaces. Poster at SAC'06 PL (ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Programming Languages track). Paper, final version [PDF]
  • K.H. Mortensen, K.R. Schougaard, U.P. Schultz. Distance-Based Access Modifiers Applied to Safety in Home Networks. Presented at EUSAI'2004, october 2004. Final version [PDF] (© Springer-Verlag).
• Java compilation (embedded systems, making it run fast):
  • U.P. Schultz, K. Burgaard, F.G. Christensen, J.L. Kristensen. Compiling Java for Low-End Embedded Systems. Appeared at LCTES'03. Preprint of final version [PDF] (©ACM)
  • L.R. Clausen, U.P. Schultz, C. Consel, G. Muller. Java Bytecode Compression for Low-End Embedded Systems. Published in TOPLAS volume 22(3), May 2000. Preprint of final version, PS or PDF (© ACM).
  • G. Muller and U. P. Schultz. Harissa: Efficient Java Execution by Global Program Optimizations. Appeared in the March 1999 issue of IEEE Software Magazine. Preliminary version available, PS or PDF.
• Block structure:
  • O. Danvy and U.P. Schultz. Lambda-Lifting in Quadratic Time. Published in Journal of Functional and Logic Programming, 2004. Final version, available freely on-line from JFLP. (An earlier version appeared at FLOPS'02.)
  • O. Danvy and U. P. Schultz. Lambda-Dropping: Transforming Recursive Equations into Programs with Block Structure. Appeared in TCS Volume 248/1-2. Preprint of final version, PS or PDF (© Elsevier Publishing). Also available as a technical report. An earlier version was presented at PEPM'97, and is available as a technical report.
  • U. P. Schultz. Explicit and Implicit Aspects of Scope and Block Structure. Master's thesis, DAIMI, Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark, June 1997. This work was awarded "Best Danish master's thesis in computer science in the year of 1997" by The Danish Computer Science Society (Dansk Datalogi Selskab). (Abstract) (Postscript) (DVI)

Personal links

• On-line profiles: LinkedIn, facebook
• Favorites: slashdot.org, Google
• First computer: Sinclair QL (personal rant)
• Personal: wishlist (in Danish), huckle.dk
• On-line comics: Giant in the Playground (both), Girl Genius, Buck Godot, Dresden Codak, Nobody Scores