Real Time Software

Real-time Software Techniques

Timing Analysis of Real-time Software

The authors set out to address fundamental design issues facing engineers when developing the software for real-time computer-based control systems in which all programs must be safe, reliable, predictable and able to cope with the occurence of faults. Despite rapid progress in computer technology, the attention of designers is still focused on finding logically correct algorithms to implement the required control. It has, however, become evident that this is insufficient and that attention must be paid to meeting the complex timing interactions which occur between the systems under control and the computers controlling them. This book suggests that the answers lie in the use of understandable, engineering-relevant, mathematically sound tools for expressing and analysing the complex temporal interactions. Timing Analysis of Real-Time Software is not a designer's handbook; rather it discusses the nature of the problems involved and how they can be handled. The focus is on the use of modelling techniques based on the so-called Quirk-model, initially developed in the United Kingdom and, over the past decade, extensively developed in institutions in the ex-Soviet Union and Europe. This book shows how the techniques can be used to form the basis of a new generation of CASE (computer assisted software engineering) tools, and examples are given of how these can be used to design embedded systems ranging from digital controllers through to communication protocol handlers.

An Object-oriented Real-time Simulation of Music Performance Using Interactive Control

Abstract: "This thesis addresses the problem of interactive control of real-time music performance by sound synthesizers. The approach to the problem is based on an analysis of a real world orchestra performance. The problem is decomposed into components that are one-to-one with the real world entities: a conductor, performers, instruments, a score, and parts. A detailed object-oriented design of each of the components is presented and the objects and their real world counterparts are compared. An abstract digital music representation is defined to represent the musical composition that is to be performed by the system