TMO Tool Set

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A GUI Based Aid for Generation of
Code-Frameworks of TMOs K. H. (Kane) Kim and
S. J. Kang DREAM Lab. UC, Irvine khkim,
seokjook_at_uci.edu October 14th, 2001
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Contents

• Motivation
• Challenges in Design of Distributed Real-time
  Embedded-computing (DRE) Systems
• TMO (Time-triggered Message-triggered Object)
  Programming Scheme
• Overview
• TMO Network Design Methodology (TMONDeM)
• Visual Studio for TMO (ViSTMO)
• Summary

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Motivation

• Most of DRE systems are complex and require high
  reliability.
• The system reliability and the design efficiency
  are of vital importance.
• The state of the art for design of DRE systems is
  inadequate for dealing with large-scale, complex,
  and highly reliable DRE applications.
• Requirements specifications are not rigorous.
• Specifying temporal behavior requirements is
  problematic .
• Based on the Low level programming style (using C
  or Assembly)
• Designers should concern about low level
  attributes (e.g. threads and priority)
• Can not meet the design efficiency and reliable
  system design requirements.

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Challenges in Design of DRE systems

• How to establish General-form design of DRE
  systems based on the high-level programming
  scheme?
• General-form design realizing DRE in a general
  manner not alienating the main-stream computing
  industry.
• How to guarantee timely service capabilities of
  subsystems?
• Two important requirements
• Modular design including modular specification of
  timing properties of components
• Design-time analysis of timing behavior of
  implemented component
• How to integrate design tools and techniques
  seamlessly through multiple engineering phases?
• Key issue The uniformity and the range of
  controlled accuracy in representation of various
  levels of system design evolving through multiple
  design phases.

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TMO Programming Scheme

• Established in early 1990's with a concrete
  syntactic structure and execution semantics for
  economical reliable design and implementation of
  RT systems.
• A natural easy- to- use extension of the C/
  Java technology into an RT distributed software
  component programming technology
• supports design of distributable Real Time (RT)
  objects and distributable non- RT objects within
  one general structure.
• A natural syntactically small but semantically
  powerful extension of the conventional object
  structure

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TMO Basic Structure

• Time-triggered (TT-) or spontaneous methods
  (SpMs)
• Clearly separated from the conventional service
  methods (SvMs) triggered by messages from
  clients
• Time-window imposed on each output action and
  method completion

• Connections to the network environment as
  possible data members
• Programmable data-field-channels
• TMO access capabilities (possibly remote TMO's)
• Basic concurrency constraint (BCC)
• SpM executions not disturbed by SvM executions.
• Eases design-time guarantee of timely services of
  TMOs

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Specification of Time-triggered action

• Triggering times for SpMs
• Must be fully specified as constants at
  design-time
• Appear in the first clause of the SpM
  specification called the autonomous
  activation condition (AAC)

Example of AAC
ab "AAC-begin" AAC name for t
from 10am to 1050am every 30min
start-during (t, t5 min) finish-by t10min
ae "AAC-end " "start-during
(10am, 1005am) finish-by 1010am",
"start-during (1030am, 1035am) finish-by
1040am"
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TMO Network Structured Application Execution
Facilities
No concerns with - Processes Threads - Object
locations (except in avoiding overloaded nodes) -
Low-level comm. protocols No specification of
timing requirements in indirect terms (e. g.,
priorities) - Only start-windows and completion
deadlines for object methods and - time-windows
for output actions
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TMOSM (TMO Support Middleware)

• A middleware architecture supporting TMO
  execution
• Supports distributed, real-time programming on
  COTS platforms
• Allows programmers to express action timings
  flexibly and well-structured forms (at the level
  of 10 milliseconds with an implementation based
  on Windows NT)
• User-friendly C API, TMOSL (TMO support
  library)
• High portability and expandability
• Can be ported to most modern OS with small effort

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TMO Network Design Methodology TMONDeM

• High-level program component (TMO) based design.
• TMO structuring is the most desirable building
  block structure for the DRE systems.
• Capable of dealing with non-RT and RT computing
  requirements in uniform manners. General-form
  Design
• It is possible to realize non-RT computer systems
  by simply filling the time constraint
  specification part with unconstrained default
  values.
• Provides design-time guarantee for timely service
  capabilities.
• The designer can impose a guaranteed service time
  (GST) on every service method in a program
  component during design time.
• Using uniform structuring of all the way from the
  requirement specification to the final
  implementation

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Visual Studio for TMO (ViSTMO)

• A visual modeling tool supporting the TMONDeM .
• It provides a graphics-based design editor for
  TMO network application designs based on the TMO
  top-down and step-wise design method (TMONDeM)
• Automatic generation of C source code (class
  definitions only)
• It generates C source code (class definitions
  for TMO, ODSS, SpM, SvM)
• Increase programming efficiency and system
  reliability.
• Allowing smooth transition from design to coding.
• It can be integrated with C compiler (MS Visual
  studio) and will create a workspace and projects
  for the application.
• Minimize the gab between design and coding.
• Efficient management of design documents and
  source code.
• It will help TMO network application designers
  and programmers to manage design documents and
  source code
• gt Increase productivity.

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ViSTMO Major Components and Functionality

• Components and Functionality
• Graphics-based design editor
• Visual creation of TMO
• Defining TMO properties ODSS, SpM, and SvM
  class
• TMO network Diagram
• Relations among the TMOs message types
• How the TMOs evolve at each step.
• Code-framework Generator
• Creating C code for TMO definition creates
  .h and .cpp files
• ODSS, SpM and SvM class
• Integration with Visual Studio
• Creates work space, projects and TMO config.ini
  files
• Supporting deployment of TMOs under distributed
  environment
• Creates separate main file and config.ini file
  for each node.

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ViSTMO Major Components and Functionality
(Cont.)
Requirement analysis and Design
ViSTMO
- Property of each TMO
Graphics-based design editor
- TMO network diagram - Property of each TMO
Code generation
Code-framework Generator
- C code for TMO class definitions - TMO
config.ini files, Visual Studio work space,
and projects files
Other tools
Compiler / Debugger(MS Visual Studio)
Timing Analyzer
- Method Implementation
Coding and debugging
Timing analysis
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ViSTMO An Illustration

• Creating an SpM
• Add an SpM to a TMO
• Set ODSS access mode
• Specifying the timing constrain AAC
• Remote SvM call

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Add an SpM to a TMO
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Set ODSS access mode
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Specifying the timing constrain AAC
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Remote SvM call
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Summary

• The state of the art for design of DRE systems is
  inadequate for dealing with large-scale, complex,
  and highly reliable DRE applications.
• TMONDeM (TMO Network Design Methodology) is a
  General-form timeliness-guaranteed design that
  is the idealistic approach for the development of
  the complex and highly reliable DRE applications.
• In order to improve TMONDeM, we are working on a
  GUI tool for programming efficiency and system
  reliability.

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THE END.Thank you.