The Chimera Methodology: Designing Dynamically Reconfigurable Real-Time Software using Port-Based Objects

The Chimera Methodology is a new software engineering paradigm which addresses the problem of developing dynamically reconfigurable and reusable real-time software. The foundation of the Chimera methodology is the port-based object model of a reusable software component. The model is obtained by applying the port-automaton formal computational model to object-based design. Global state variable table real-time communication is used to integrate port-based objects, which eliminates the need for writing and debugging glue code. The Chimera real-time operating system provides tools to support the software models defined by the Chimera methodology, so that real-time software can be executed predictably using common real-time scheduling algorithms. A hypermedia user interface has been designed to allow users to easily assemble the real-time software components that are designed based on the Chimera methodology. Use of the methodology can result in a significant decrease the development time and cost of real-time applications.