Real-time design in a distributed control network application layer environment

D. Heffernan, A. Bohannon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The use of communication networks in time-critical control applications presents designers with special problems in the determination of response times for communicating distributed tasks. Application layers have been developed to allow designers to abstract away from the implementation details of the network protocol but little effort has gone into the problem of attempting to define real-time bounds for tasks, at design time, in a generalised application layer environment. In this paper, using a 'structured analysis' design approach, a real-time distributed application can be mapped to an application layer of a control network and guaranteed to meet its real-time requirements. The CAN (Controller Area Network) along with the CAN Application Layer (CAL) has been chosen as the experimental network. CAN is a popular control network used extensively in automotive and automation environments. The 'CAN Messaging Service' (CMS) elements of CAL are carefully selected to implement the 'distributed information flows and event flows produced by the 'structured design' methodology. A real-time analysis approach for CAL's CMS service elements is developed. Intelligent use of CALs inhibit times allow modelling of an event-driven system with properties inherent to a periodic system. Combining the worst-case computational, queuing and transmission delays, the response time for each distributed task can then be evaluated. This allows 'fine tuning' of the distributed tasks until they can be guaranteed to meet their deadlines.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)149-155
Number of pages7
JournalIEE Proceedings: Software
Volume148
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2001

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