Revisiting COTS middleware for DRE systems

Distributed real-time embedded systems (DRE) increasingly rely on COTS middleware to meet their distribution needs. Yet, there is a technology gap between the design of COTS middleware and the high-integrity constraints of real-time engineering. This puts a limit on the adoption of middleware by system families such as space or avionics. In this paper, we present our current work on the "schizophrenic middleware architecture", a highly tailorable middleware architecture, and its implementation PolyORB. We illustrate how it allows for support of real-time engineering guidelines, enforces determinism, allows for modeling and verification.