Embedded system design with ada as the system design language

Abstract

Recent research in software engineering has produced a number of techniques for structuring an understanding of systems. Many of these techniques are applicable to the design of embedded computer systems and produce designs whose structures are easily expressible in the ada language. This language is itself structured so that the design of a system can be expressed independently of its implementation. Thus ada can be a useful system design language (SDL) with these techniques. This paper describes the software design problem in the development of embedded computer systems. It shows how ada can be used as an SDL, as well as a system implementation language. The essential point is that as an SDL ada encourages designers to use recent theory to develop better structures for their systems, and its subsequent use to implement the systems preserves those structures in the product.