An extensible transport framework for CORBA with emphasis on real-time capabilities

Intelligent control systems that are able to operate (nearly) autonomously replace more and more human operators. This is justified especially in dangerous environments, where human beings could be severely injured, but also for saving cost or because of the increased reliability of machines (especially for boring work, a human operator will not be able to pay full attention for several hours). With the demand for new functionality control systems are often software-intensive applications that are becoming extremely complex. Distributed object technology has proven to be useful for dealing with complexity. One of the leading technologies in this field is the object request brokering model proposed by the CORBA (common object request broker architecture) specification of the OMG (object management group). This paper presents a prototype implementation for a CORBA extensible transport framework for making CORBA usable in distributed control applications. Timeliness is crucial for the stability and thus dependability of the closed control loop. This approach also allows the transmission of event-messages without influencing real-time traffic