Researchers: | John S. Davis II |
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Advisor: | Edward A. Lee |
Sponsor: |
In this project, we consider systems in which resource sharing plays a prominent role. Example systems include embedded hardware architecture designs involving shared memory. Non embedded system examples such as object request brokers or client server models are also relevant. To address such systems we consider process calculi in general and the pi-Calculus specifically as a framework for modeling shared resources. The pi-Calculus offers a rich and mature formalism. In particular, we will leverage off of its notion of atomic communication as a technique for maintaining safety in the midst of resource contention.
Our goal is to properly modify the semantics of the pi-Calculus to facilitate our design needs. In particular, we are currently studying the usefulness of an appropriate notion of time to supplement the pi-Calculus. At the same time, we may remove other features of the pi-Calculus should we decide that they lead to over-specification. Our aim is a model of computation which has the proper level of expressiveness.
We will implement our result within JPtolemy. JPtolemy is a redesign project in which Ptolemy is being rewritten using Java instead of C++. A key benefit of JPtolemy will be the incorporation of a standard threading mechanism. This will be useful for our purposes as the fundamental nature of the pi-Calculus incorporates concurrency.