Representing and executing real-time systems

Abstract

In this paper, we describe an approach to the representation, specification and implementation of real-time systems. The approach is based on the notion of concurrent object-oriented systems where processes are represented as objects. In our approach, the behaviour of an object (its safety properties and time requirements) is declaratively stated as a set of temporal constraints among events which provides great advantages in writing concurrent real-time systems and manipulating them while preserving correctness. The temporal constraints have a procedural interpretation that allows them to be executed, also concurrently. Concurrency issues and time requirements are separated from the code, minimizing dependency between application functionality and concurrency/timing control.