Research Project Summaries

The PCES Program

PCES

The Program Components for Embedded Systems (PCES) is directed and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). This program is an investigation into representation and analysis by means of applying lower-level aspect-oriented programming (AIP) programming concepts to the higher-lever model-integrated computing (MIC) modeling level. The goals of this process include the following.

• Develop a domain-specific, graphical language that computes the functional design of real-time embedded systems

• Ensure that high-level invariant properties and system requirements are met.

• Generate executable objects that properly interwork in real-time embedded systems.

Much of the PCES program is a set of projects being carried out by Vanderbilt University. Tri-Pacific Software, with our expertise in real-time systems, has taken a partner role in some projects where we are defining, specifying, implementing and demonstrating aspects of the PCES goals in real-time systems development. We shall continue to be involved in additional projects.

Reference: http://www.isis.vanderbilt.edu/projects/pces/default.html

GME

The Generalized Modeling Environment (GME), developed by Vanderbilt University, is an important component of the overall PCES project. The GME enables a development team to specify constraints and requirements and facilitates the verification that the modeled system satisfies those constraints and requirements.

Tri-Pacific Software incorporated into GME the capability to perform a schedulability analysis. To accomplish this, we extended GME to include specific timing and schedulability information in many model elements. We provided the capability to extract the timing information and apply our RAPID RMA product to perform a Rate Monotonic Analysis (RMA) based on the information in the model. The extraction and invocation is an extension to GME available through additional items in the main product menus.

Reference: http://www.isis.vanderbilt.edu/projects/gme/default.html

Real-Time CORBA

Tri-Pacific Software worked with the Object Management Group™ (OMG™) to define the first standards for Real-Time CORBA®. This includes both Fixed Priority Scheduling as well as Dynamic Scheduling in a CORBA architecture. These standards define how to specify and enforce global priorities of objects in distributed architectures.

RAPID Sched Development

Subsequent to the release of the Real-Time CORBA standards, Tri-Pacific Software developed an implementation of the scheduling module called a Scheduling Service. We partnered with researchers at the University of Rhode Island to develop object-oriented scheduling algorithms that we incorporated into our RAPID Sched product. The client and server implementations are dependent on both the Real-Time ORB and RTOS (Real-Time Operating System) chosen. Tri-Pacific developed implementations for the leading Real-Time ORB and RTOS combinations available.

This work was funded by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) and Office of Naval Research (ONR). Tri-Pacific's RAPID Sched product works with a number of Real-Time ORBs including Washington University's Tao Real-Time ORB.

Real-Time UML

Tri-Pacific Software worked with Object Management Group™ (OMG™) to define the standards for Real-Time UML™. The result of this work includes specifications about applying timing information associated with objects at various levels of granularity in the UML.

RAPID RMA for Real-Time UML Development

Subsequent to the development of the Real-Time UML standards, Tri-Pacific Software created "seamless" integrations with several of the leading commercial Real-Time UML products by extending their modeling capabilities to include the timing information included in the new standard. In addition, we provided the capability to extract the timing information and apply our RAPID RMA product to perform a Rate Monotonic Analysis (RMA) based on the information in the model. The extraction and invocation is an extension to the commercial product available through additional items in the main product menus. Tri-Pacific Software has included these capabilities in the following UML products:

• Rational Rose Real-Time

• Telelogic Rhapsody

CORBA, UML, Object Management Group and OMG are either trademarks or registered trademarks of the Object Management Group (OMG) in the United States or other countries.