An operational semantics for RTPA

A formal specification methodology that describes the behaviors of a real-time system must have a means to verify the specification before software is implemented from it. Developing a verifier for a formal specification language demands an operational semantics for the language. If the syntactic constructs of the language involve variables, its operational semantics is more difficult to define since the environment must also show the association of variables and the values to which they are assigned. This paper presents the operational semantics of real-time process algebra (RTPA). RTPA describes a software system's behavior using a combination of meta-processes and process relations. Based on the meta-processes and process relations, the operational semantics of RTPA is presented, which shows how syntactic constructs can be reduced to values using inference rules. The operational semantics for RTPA will serve as a basis for the verifier and checker for RTPA specifications.