Composing Real-Time Applications from Communicating Black-Box Components

To handle complexity, embedded software is usually divided into components that are developed independently from each other and then need to be integrated in a reliable and deterministic manner. This involves buffering and synchronizing exchanged signals, as well as finding a feasible execution schedule, which is a tedious and error-prone procedure. We propose a model of computation that enables a programming framework which automatically performs such an integration, without requiring access to the components' source code. The developer only needs to declare interface signals between the components, connect them and define their execution periods. A software library then \em synthesizes deterministic communication mechanisms and provides a flexible, yet safe interface for time-triggered execution. Our approach does not require any run-time environment or special compiler, which makes it light-weight and amenable to be used on embedded platforms with limited resources.     «

To handle complexity, embedded software is usually divided into components that are developed independently from each other and then need to be integrated in a reliable and deterministic manner. This involves buffering and synchronizing exchanged signals, as well as finding a feasible execution schedule, which is a tedious and error-prone procedure. We propose a model of computation that enables a programming framework which automatically performs such an integration, without requiring a...     »