Reference Middleware Architecture for Real-Time and Embedded Systems

While middleware technology has been successfully utilized in the enterprise computing domain, its adoption in commercial real-time and embedded systems is slow due to their extra non-functional requirements such as real-time guarantee, resource limitation, and fault-tolerance. In this chapter, we present a reference middleware architecture called the robot software communications architecture (RSCA) to address these requirements. The RSCA effectively demonstrates how typical real-time and embedded middleware is organized. It is comprised of a real-time operating system, a communication middleware, and a deployment middleware which collectively form a hierarchical structure that enables device abstraction, component modeling, dynamic re-configurability, resource frugality, and real-time QoS capabilities. We also address future challenges arising from new trends related to power-aware high-performance computing, effective data streaming support, and domain-specific abstractions.