Timed publish-subscribe communications for distributed embedded systems

In a distributed embedded system, data items may be moved from one set of functional modules to another through a common buffer that is interposed between them over a network. Here, the computation modules disseminating data should agree on what data items are written into the remote buffer, to coordinate their actions on the external environment. Furthermore, a timely effect of these actions requires enforcing deadlines on the processing of data from the remote buffer. To meet these requirements, we provide a publish-subscribe style programming structure that enables a shared view of the processing on data in the buffer by various computation modules over prescribed time intervals. Our structure allows an explicit application-level control of the asynchrony and timing of information flow between various modules. Its use is illustrated with a case study of a target tracking application. In general, our programming structure can be useful in a variety of embedded software systems such as shared e-desks and collaborative Web services.