AN ADA OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE FOR REAL-TIME MULTIPROCESSOR APPLICATIONS

OBJECTIVE: TO DEVELOP A SPECIFICATION FOR AN OBJECT-ORIENTED MAIN-MEMORY SHARED DTABASE FOR A HOMOGENEOUS SHARED-MEMORY MULTI- PROCESSOR WHICH IS HIGHLY INTEGRATED WITH THE ADA LANGUAGE, AND PROGRAMMED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IN PORTABLE ADA. THIS IN-MEMORY DATABASE SHULD PROVIDE FOR THE EXTREMELY EFFICIENT OPERATIONS REQUIRED OF A REAL-TIME, EMBEDDED, INTELLIGENT ROBOTICS MULTI- PROCESSOR-E.G., THE DARPA PILOT'S ASSOCIATE. THE HIGHEST EFFICIENCY IS TO BE OBTAINED BY KEEPING ALL DATA IN RAM MEMORY, USING STANDARD ADA DATATYPE FORMATS, USING SHARED-MEMORY RATHER THAN MESSAGE-PASSING TECHNIQUES WHENEVER POSSIBLE, AND RELYING ON HARDWARE CACHE-COHERENCY TECHNIQUES RATHER THAN SOFTWARE TECHNIQUES WHENEVER POSSIBLE. THE "BLACKBOARD ARCHITECTURE" USED TO IMPLEMENT INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOR WILL BE IMPLEMENTED ON TOP OF THIS OBJECT-ORIENTED MAIN-MEMORY SHARED DATABASE. THIS ADA DATABASE CAN ALSO SERVE AS A HIGHLY EFFICIENT "OBJECT CACHE" FOR A MORE PERSISTENT, NON-REAL-TIME COMMERCIAL OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE.