Components in Real-Time Systems

Component-based Software Engineering (CBSE) is a promising approach to improve quality, achieve shorter time to market and to manage the increasing complexity of software. Still there are a number of unsolved problems that hinder wide use of it. This is especially true for real-time systems, not only because of more rigorous requirements and demanding constraints, but also because of lack of knowledge how to implement the component-based techniques on real-time development. In this paper we present a method for development of real-time systems using the component-based approach. The development process is analysed with respect to both temporal and functional constraints of real-time components. Furthermore, we propose what information is needed from the component providers to successfully reuse binary real-time components. Finally, we discuss a possibility of managing compositions of components and suggest how an existing real-time development environment can be extended to support our design method.