A Methodology for the Development of Distributed Real-Time Control Applications With Focus on Task Allocation in Heterogeneous Systems

A distributed application development methodology is necessary to define specific steps, through which the application specification can be successfully mapped to the system devices. Interoperability and real-timeliness are two major issues in distributed control application development. The main focus of this paper is a generic device model, developed to provide interoperability, and the function block allocation (FBALL) algorithm, defined to guarantee that real-time requirements are met. FBALL is a hybrid approach targeted for the nature of distributed control applications, resulting in an assignment of the application tasks to the system resources, as well as a feasible schedule that meets the real-time constraints. Based on these solutions to interoperability and real-time criticality, a methodology is presented, supporting the distributed control application specification, modeling, and implementation to heterogeneous systems.