REAL-TIME OBJECT-ORIENTED DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND THE TMO SCHEME

Abstract

Real-time (RT) object-oriented (OO) distributed computing is a form of RT distributed computing realized with a distributed computer system structured in the form of an object network. Several approaches proposed in recent years for extending the conventional object structuring scheme to suit RT applications, are briefly reviewed. Then the approach to RT OO distributed computing which the author and his collaborators have been establishing in recent years will be reviewed in more detail. The approach named the TMO (Time-triggered Message-triggered Object) structuring scheme was formulated with the goal of instigating a quantum productivity jump in the design of complex real-time computing systems (RTCS's). The TMO scheme is intended to facilitate the pursuit of a new paradigm in designing RTCS's which is to realize real-time computing with a common and general design style that does not alienate the main-stream computing industry and yet to allow system engineers to confidently produce certifiable RTCS's for safety-critical applications. The TMO structuring scheme is a syntactically simple but semantically powerful extension of the conventional object structuring approaches and as such, its support tools can be based on various well-established OO programming languages such as C++ and JAVA and on ubiquitous commercial RT operating system kernels. The scheme enables a great reduction of the designer's efforts in guaranteeing timely service capabilities of application systems. Also, the scheme is applicable to structuring of not only complex distributed RTCS's but also application environment descriptors/simulators and requirement specifications.