Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Interfacing to Time-Triggered Communication Systems

Time-triggered communication facilitates the construction of multi-component real-time systems whose components are in control of their temporal behaviour. However, the interface of a time-triggered communication system has to be accessed with care, to avoid that the temporal independence of components gets lost. This paper shows two interfacing strategies, one for asynchronous interface access (in two variants, one being the new Rate-bounded Non-Blocking Communication protocol) and one for time-aware, synchronized interface access, that allow components to maintain temporal independence. The paper describes and compares these interfacing strategies.