Design of component-based real-time applications

This paper presents the key aspects of a model-based methodology that is proposed for the design of component-based applications with hard real-time requirements. The methodology relies on RT-CCM (Real-time Container Component Model), a component technology aimed to make the timing behaviour of the applications predictable and inspired in the Lightweight CCM specification of the OMG. Some new mechanisms have been introduced in the underlying framework that make it possible to schedule the execution of code and the transmission of messages of an application while guaranteeing that the application will meet its timing requirements when executed. The added mechanisms also enable the application designer to configure this scheduling without interfering with the opacity typically required in component management. Moreover, the methodology includes a process for generating the real-time model of a component-based application as a composition of the reusable real-time models of the components that form it. From the analysis of this model the application designer obtains the configuration values that must be applied to the component instances and the elements of the framework in order to make the application fulfil its timing requirements. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.