Using timed CSP during object oriented design of real-time systems

Object oriented techniques address analysis, design and implementation, allowing reusable and extensible software to be developed. However, there has been a reluctance to adopt object oriented techniques within the real-time system community due to the effects of polymorphism and dynamic binding on performance. Further objections to object oriented techniques are concerned with the effect of inheritance on coupling. This paper proposes using a dialect of MASCOT to which object oriented concepts have been introduced. Object oriented techniques are used for analysis and design, while real-time languages are used for implementation. The approach, therefore, achieves the advantages of object oriented modelling without the run-time overheads caused by object oriented programming languages. Timed CSP specifications support the less formal techniques used for functional analysis. This is particularly important for understanding semantics when developing safety critical and reactive systems.