Design Rationale of the PureObject - Oriented Embedded Operating

The Pure project aims at providing a portable, universal runtime executive for deeply embedded parallel/distributed systems. The phrase \deeply embedded" refers to systems forced to operate under extreme resource constraints in terms of memory, CPU, and power consumption. The notion \parallel/distributed" relates to the fact that embedded systems are becoming more and more complex in terms of architectural viewpoints. Typical examples are automotive systems. Todays limousines can be considered as (large scale) distributed systems on wheels. There are cars in daily operation consisting of over 60 networked processors (i.e.-controllers) attached to 1{2 MB of global memory These \decentral-ized computer architectures" make high demands on both the application and the system software. Dedicated design and implementation principles have to be applied in order to ensure manageability, adaptability, portabil-ity, and yet eeciency of the software. In addition, the resulting software structure must promote, and neither hinder nor prevent, the application of formal methods to gain clear statements on correctness and safety of the resulting system complex. This paper discusses design issues of a family-based, object-oriented operating system currently under development and targeting the arena of deeply embedded systems in the above-mentioned sense.