Real-time ticks for synchronous programming

We address the problem of synchronous programs that cannot be easily executed in a classical time-triggered or event-triggered execution loop. We propose a novel approach, referred to as dynamic ticks, that reconciles the semantic timing abstraction of the synchronous approach with the desire to give the application fine-grained control over its real-time behavior. The main idea is to allow the application to dynamically specify its own wake-up times rather than ceding their control to the environment. As we illustrate in this paper, synchronous languages such as Esterel are already well equipped for this; no language extensions are needed. All that is required is a rather minor adjustment of the way the tick function is called.