Synchronous/Asynchronous Approaches for Intelligent Real-Time Systems

This paper describes a system called SATURNE (Synchronous AnyTime coUpling for Real-time reasoNing dEsign), which constitutes a framework for designing intelligent time critical systems. The model involves a mixed (synchronous/asynchronous) programming approach built around a strong synchronous formalism for the expression of critical timing constraints, and conventional asynchronous languages for the expression of the transformational parts. The major originality of the SATURNE approach consists in introducing an anytime model of computation for meeting temporal deadlines. This work is supported by the French Ministry of Defense (DRET)