Architectural abstractions and time modelling in HyperReal

This paper describes the foundation of the HyperReal project. It is centred on the definition of architectural abstractions that permit designing modular RT systems. Basic components are reactive agents manipulating data and connectors supporting interactions among agents. Such components are not aware of the system configuration nor of the control strategy, which are managed by a configurator and by a controller respectively. The controller relies on a time-driven model of control, and separates the definition of plans from the dispatching of the actions they define. Plans are associated with virtual clocks which support the explicit management of time. The architectural abstractions allow a designer to fully control the temporal behaviour of the system and to reuse components under different application-oriented control models.