Temporal aspects of real-time system design

Describes some of the more important aspects of real-time networks, and shows how such networks can be used to control and analyse the temporal properties of computer-based systems. At the heart of the approach is the characterisation of information flows in terms of a small set of well-defined protocols, and the reflection of these protocols within the functional, design, implementation and execution models for a system. This provides a well-defined and traceable path from functional description through to execution, so allowing temporal requirements within applications to be expressed in a form such that they can be guaranteed (by analysis) to be met within the corresponding network solutions. The paper begins with a brief discussion of network models of computation, before moving on to the communication dynamics which lie at the heart of this network approach. Traceability and interface issues are then considered, followed by aspects of timing analysis. The paper concludes with a small example to illustrate the more important features of the approach