A Component Approach to Real-time and Embedded

The purpose of the COMPARE project is to develop a framework based on the CORBA Compoment Model (CCM for real-time and embedded).

The reference implementation of it will be tested on two different application cases (one based on RT-CORBA, the second on OSEK-VDX RTOS).

Project Partners:

• Thales Communications
• Comisariat per l'Energie Atomique
• Trialog
• Schneider Electric
• PrismTech
• Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

  One general trend in software for real-time and embedded systems is towards complexity. This is due to the increased functionality these systems are required to support as well as to the fact that they are now often supposed to be part of a more general system and well integrated in it. The software architectures currently used to design those systems were primarily meant to take into account performance issues and are not enough structured to support this increase in complexity. The challenge is thus to move from a performance-centric approach to a complexity-centric approach, while not loosing in that move the adequate support for performance and time management.

  Traditional software had also to face this increase in complexity and had developed new paradigms to take it into account. A very promising one is the component/container model. However current models (e.g. Sun's EJB, CCM - OMG's CORBA Component Model) were primarily dedicated to information systems and the services they propose (e.g. persistence) are not well suited for real-time and embedded systems.

  CORBA has moved towards real-time and embedded areas (cf. most of the recent adopted specifications); with the very recently adopted Lightweight CCM, CCM has started a move in the same direction by defining a minimum profile upon which it now possible to build a model dedicated to real-time and embedded.