International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering

Abstract

This paper presents the design and working of a Universal Turing Machine (UTM) for the JFLAP platform. Automata play a major role in compiler design and parsing. The class of formal languages that work for the most complex problems belong to the set of Recursively Enumerable Languages (REL). RELs are accepted by the type of automata known as Turing Machines. Turing Machines are the most powerful computational machines and are the theoretical basis for modern computers. Still it is a tedious task to create and maintain Turing Machines for all the problems. To solve this Universal Turing Machine (UTM) is designed in this paper. The UTM works for all classes of languages including regular languages, Context Free Languages as well as Recursively Enumerable Languages. A UTM simulates any other TM, thus providing a single model and solution for all the computational problems. The creation of UTM is very tedious because of the underlying complexities. Also many of the existing tools do not support the creation of UTM which makes the task very difficult to accomplish. Hence a Universal Turing Machine is developed for the JFLAP platform. JFLAP is most successful and widely used tool for visualizing and simulating all types of automata.