APIs for real-time distributed object programming

Ideally, according to the author, a real-time distributed programming method should be based on a general high-level style that could be easily accommodated by application programmers using C++ and Java. If such a method were to exist, these programmers could specify the interactions among distributed components and the timing requirements of various actions without expending much effort. Facilitating high-level, high precision, real-time object programming by establishing some form of language tools has consequently become a subject of great interest to the embedded systems community. This article focuses on application programming interfaces (APIs) that take the form of C++ and Java class libraries and support high-level, high precision, real-time object programming without requiring new language translators. These APIs wrap the services of the real-time object execution engines, which consist of hardware, node OSs, and middleware; they enable convenient high-level programming almost to the extent that a new real-time object language can. The author explains the API's fundamental features, how they interact among real-time objects, and how multicast channels and real-time multicast APIs contribute.