ADA FOR EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

EMBEDDED MISSION-CRITICAL SOFTWARE IS EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TO RUNTIME PERFORMANCE. THE ADA LANGUAGE IS RESPONSIVE TO THE SOFTWARE ENGINEER-ING PROBLEMS OF MISSION CRITICAL COMPUTING RESOURCE (MCCR) SYSTEMS. BUT ADA RUNTIME PACKAGES INFLUENCE AND OFTEN DETERMINE PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY, FLEXIBILITY, AND RECONFIGURABILITY OF AN EMBEDDED APPLICATION. THIS RESEARCH WILL DEFINE A RUNTIME WHICH SUPPORTS EMBEDDED APPLICATIONS THAT CAN BE RUN ON A CONFIGURATION INCLUDING EITHER SINGLE OR MULTIPLE PROCESSORS AS WELL AS SHARED AND/OR DISTRIBUTED MEMORIES. THE RUNTIME IMPLEMENTATION WILL BE CONFIGURABLE SO THAT MINIMUM CODE SPACE IS OCCUPIED BY THE RUNTIME. FUNCTIONALLY, IT WILL PROVIDE FULL ADA SUPPORT WITH THE ADDITIONS OF MESSAGE COMMUNICATION AND RECONFIGURATION OF BOTH ADA APPLICATIONS AND PHYSICAL RESOURCES. IN THE RUNTIME IMPLEMENTATIONS, TARGET MACHINE-DEPENDENT CODE IS MINIMIZED AND SEGREGATED FROM THE BULK OF THE RUNTIME WHICH IS SHARED ADA CODE. PHASE II WILL COMPLETE THE DESIGN, SPECIFICATIONSAND DOCUMENTED IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE RUNTIME FOR SEVERAL MACHINES, PROBABLY THE MIL-STD-1750A AND THE MOTOROLA 68020, AND FOR A MULTIPLE-PROCESSOR CONFIGURATION OF AT LEAST ONE MACHINE.