The AIDA toolset for design and implementation analysis of distributed real-time control systems

This article introduces a toolset that integrates the design and performance analysis of control systems with embedded real-time system design. The toolset enables specification and analysis of real-time implementations of control applications. Control system designs are imported to a real-time system-modelling domain in which the functionality is distributed on a target computer system. The control functionality is partitioned into operating system processes, inter-process communications are defined and the triggering of processes is specified. Once the real-time design is complete, the response times and release jitter of the processes and their contained functions can be analysed and the system information exported back to the control domain. This enables analysis of the resulting control performance with account taken to implementation effects such as delays and release jitter due to resource sharing and scheduling. The usage of the toolset is demonstrated on a dual leg controller for a walking robot. The case study shows how the toolset is used to describe a system, from the control system specification to the design of its implementation on a distributed network of processors. Different implementation solutions are suggested and evaluated based on simulated control system performance. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.