A technology and software toolset for design and verification of real-time control algorithms

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology and a specially developed software toolset for design and verification of real-time control algorithms and programs. The real-time control algorithm must timely execute required actions in accordance with the current situation reflected by the parameters checked. This kind of algorithm is an example of a mission-critical application. Unfortunately, these algorithms suffer from mistakes and errors resulting in disasters, large material losses, etc. That is why the process of design, development, and verification of real-time control algorithms is rather time- and labor-consuming. Verification usually involves many-staged debugging on special testbeds. Some errors in control algorithms are due to misunderstandings between the participants of the control-system development process: specialists in particular subsystems, system engineers, and programmers. The proposed methodology makes it possible to exclude programmers from the process of control-software development, thereby reducing the number of errors and the labor cost. The main idea is to design and use a special visual notation intuitively understandable for system engineers. This feature should reduce the number of errors in control algorithms due to eliminating the “broken phone effect” when the programmer can misunderstand a program specification and implement it in the wrong software. The toolset consists of special software modules, including modules for visualization, construction, and verification of onboard real-time control algorithms. All modules are executed from an integrated development environment.