Composing real-time applications from communicating black-box components

To handle complexity, embedded software is usually divided into components that are developed independently from each other and then need to be integrated in a reliable and deterministic manner. This involves buffering and synchronizing exchanged signals, as well as finding a feasible execution schedule, which is a tedious and error-prone procedure. We propose a model of computation that enables a programming framework which automatically performs such an integration, without requiring access to the components´ source code. The developer only needs to declare interface signals between the components, connect them and define their execution periods. A software library then synthesizes deterministic communication mechanisms and provides a flexible, yet safe interface for time-triggered execution. Our approach does not require any run-time environment or special compiler, which makes it light-weight and amenable to be used on embedded platforms with limited resources.