Abstract of The Giotto Domain
Ben Horowitz, UC Berkeley
bhorowit@EECS.Berkeley.EDU
Giotto is middleware that offers a principled, tool-supported design methodology for implementing embedded control systems on platforms of possibly distributed sensors, actuators, CPUs, and networks. Giotto is based on the organizing principle that time-triggered task invocations together with time-triggered mode switches can form the abstract essence of programming real-time control systems. Giotto consists of a time-triggered programming language with a formal semantics, which provides an abstract programmer's model, as well as a compiler and a runtime library which can be targeted toward various platforms. Giotto supports the automation of the control systems design process by strictly separating platform-independent functionality and timing concerns from platform-dependent scheduling and communication issues. The time-triggered predictability of Giotto makes it particularly suitable for safety-critical applications with hard real-time constraints.