Real-time environment modeling

Much has been made of recent advances in software development regarding software reusability as a means of making systems easier to develop and maintain and making (as the name implies) it possible to reuse significant portions in other related systems development, further reducing development and maintenance efforts. Real-time systems pose both unusual problems and unique opportunities in this area. The paper explores specific modeling approaches for tying together the real world one is controlling, the devices one is using to monitor and control that environment, analysis processing and temporal relationships between discrete events within the environment and related control functions. Part of the study is the application of the proposed techniques to a hypothetical air traffic control system; with examples of traditional process control environments as well