SOFTWARE REUSE TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS

ADA SOURCE CODE FOR REAL-TIME SYSTEMS CAN BE PORTED ACROSS HARDWARE ARCHITECTURES BUT ITS BEHAVIOR CAN BE DIFFICULT TO REPLICATE. THE ADA LANGUAGE REFERENCE MANUAL SPECIFIED THE SEMANTICS OF ADA RUNTIME ENVIRONMENTS BUT LEAVES THE IMPLEMENTATION UP TO THE COMPILER DEVELOPER. THUS THE ULTIMATE BEHAVIOR OF THE RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT IS IMPLEMENTION SPECIFIC. THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT BARRIER TO OVERCOME WHEN REUSING SOFTWARE AND PORTING SOFTWARE FROM ONE HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE TO ANOTHER. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IN REAL-TIME SYSTEMS WHERE THE TIMING BEHAVIOR AND SCHEDULING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT MUST BE KNOWN AND PREDICTABLE. A PROJECT IS PROPOSED TO RESEARCH MEANS OF ENABLING REUSE OF ARMY EMBEDDED REAL-TIME APPLICATIONS BY DEVELOPING REUSABLE ADA RUNTIME ENVIRONMENTS THAT AN BE PORTED ACROSS HARDWARE ARCHITECTURES. THE PROJECT WILL EXAMINE THE ARMY'S REQUIREMENTS AND WILL DERIVE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE RUNTIME ENVIRONMENTS. CANDIDATE APPROACHES WILL BE IDENTIFIED AND EVALUATED. THE MOST PROMISING SOLUTION WILL BE SELECTED FOR IMPLEMENTATION IN A PHASE II EFFORT.