The Algebra of Timed Processes, ATP: Theory and Application

We study a process algebra ATP for the description and analysis of systems of timed processes. An important feature of the algebra is that its vocabulary of actions contains a distinguished element . An occurrence of is a time event representing progress of time. The algebra has, apart from standard operators of process algebras like CCS or ACP, a primitive binary unit-delay operator. For two arguments, processes P and Q, this operator gives a process which behaves as P if started before the occurrence of a time action and as Q otherwise. From this operator we de ne d-unit delay operators that can model delay constructs of languages, like timeouts or watchdogs. The use of such operators is illustrated by examples. ATP is provided with a complete axiomatisation with respect to strong bisimulation semantics. It is shown that the algebras obtained by adding the various d-unit delay operators to ATP are conservative extensions of it.