Esterel [8, 10, 3, 4] is an imperative synchronous parallel programming lan guage dedicated to reactive systems [17]. Esterel is tailored for programming hardware or software synchronous controllers for which the control-handling aspects are predominant. Esterel programs are input-driven: they wait for inputs and compute corresponding outputs in a cycle-based way. An in put-output computation is called a reaction...

We develop a model for timed, reactive computation by extending the asynchronous, untimed concurrent constraint programming model in a simple and uniform way. In the spirit of process algebras, we develop some combinators expressible in this model, and reconcile their operational, logical and denotational character. We show how programs may be compiled into finite-state machines with loop-free computations at each state, thus guaranteeing bounded response time. 1 Introduction and Motivation Reactive systems [12,3,9] are those that react continuously with their environment at a rate controlled by the environment. Execution in a reactive system proceeds in bursts of activity. In each phase, the environment stimulates the system with an input, obtains a response in bounded time, and may then be inactive (with respect to the system) for an arbitrary period of time before initiating the next burst. Examples of reactive systems are controllers and signal-processing systems. The primary issu...

We investigate the benefits of using a synchronous data-flow language for programming critical real-time systems. These benefits concern ergonomy --- since the dataflow approach meets traditional description tools used in this domain ---, and ability to support formal design and verification methods. We show, on a simple example, how the language Lustre and its associated verification tool Lesar, can be used to design a program, to specify its critical properties, and to verify these properties. As the language Lustre and its use have been already published in several papers (e.g., [11, 18]), we put particular emphasis on program verification. A preliminary version of this paper has been published in [28]. 1 Introduction It is useless to repeat why real-time programs are among those in which errors can have the most dramatic consequences. Thus, these programs constitute a domain where there is a special need of rigorous design methods. We advocate a "language approach" to this problem...

Process preemption deals with controlling the life and death of concurrent processes. Well-defined preemption mechanisms are essential in control-dominated reactive and real-time programming, and accurate handling of preemption requires a time-dependent model. We first informally discuss what preemption is about and argue for the need of preemption primitives that are fully orthogonal with sequencing and concurrency ones. Then, we formally present the preemption operators of the Esterel zero-delay process calculus, which is a theoretical version of the Esterel synchronous programming language. 1 Introduction In concurrent systems, one deals with concurrent processes that coordinate with each other. Coordination can result from information exchange, using for example messages circulating on channels with possibly some implied synchronization. It can also result from process preemption, which is a more implicit control mechanism that consists in denying the right to work to a pro...

Esterel is a synchronous concurrent programming language dedicated to reactive systems (controllers, protocols, man-machine interfaces, etc.). Esterel has an efficient standard software implementation based on well-defined mathematical semantics. We present a new hardware implementation of the pure synchronization subset of the language. Each program generates a specific circuit that responds to any input in one clock cycle. When the source program satisfies some statically checkable dynamic properties, the circuit is shown to be semantically equivalent to the source program. The hardware translation has been effectively implemented on the programmable active memory Perle0 developed by J. Vuillemin and his group at Digital Equipment.

We present a new programming paradigm called Communicating Reactive Processes or CRP that unifies the capabilities of asynchronous and synchronous concurrent programming languages. Asynchronous languages such as CSP, Occam, or Ada are well-suited for distributed algorithms; their processes are loosely coupled and communication takes time. The Esterel synchronous language is dedicated to reactive systems; its processes are tightly coupled and deterministic, communication being realized by instantaneous broadcasting. Complex applications such as process or robot control require to couple both forms of concurrency, which is the object of CRP. A CRP program consists of independent locally reactive Esterel nodes that communicate with each other by CSP rendezvous. CRP faithfully extends both Esterel and CSP and adds new possibilities such as precise local watchdogs on rendezvous. We present the design of CRP, its semantics, a translation into classical process calculi for program verificatio...

In the future, webs of unmanned air and space vehicles will act together to robustly perform elaborate missions in uncertain environments. We coordinate these systems by introducing a reactive model-based programming language (RMPL) that combines within a single unified representation the flexibility of embedded programming and reactive execution languages, and the deliberative reasoning power of temporal planners. The KIRK planning system takes as input a problem expressed as a RMPL program, and compiles it into a temporal plan network (TPN), similar to those used by temporal planners, but extended for symbolic constraints and decisions. This intermediate representation clarifies the relation between temporal planning and causal-link planning, and permits a single task model to be used for planning and execution. Such a

This paper explores Lhc expressive power of Lhc tcc paradigm. The origin of Lhc work in Lhc inLcgraLion of synchronous and consLrainL programming is described. The basic conceptual and maLhcmaLical framework developed in Lhc spirk of Lhc model-based approach characLcrisLic of LhcorcLical compuLcr science is reviewed. Wc show LhaL a range of consLrucLs for expressing LimcouLs, prccmpLion and oLhcr complicaLcd paLLcrns of Lcmporal acLivky arc expressible in the basic model and language-framework. Indeed, we present a single construct on processes, definable in the language, that can simulate the effect of other preemption constructs

) Vineet Gupta Radha Jagadeesan Prakash Panangaden y vgupta@mail.arc.nasa.gov radha@cs.luc.edu prakash@cs.mcgill.ca Caelum Research Corporation Dept. of Math. and Computer Sciences School of Computer Science NASA Ames Research Center Loyola University--Lake Shore Campus McGill University Moffett Field CA 94035, USA Chicago IL 60626, USA Montreal, Quebec, Canada Abstract This paper describes a stochastic concurrent constraint language for the description and programming of concurrent probabilistic systems. The language can be viewed both as a calculus for describing and reasoning about stochastic processes and as an executable language for simulating stochastic processes. In this language programs encode probability distributions over (potentially infinite) sets of objects. We illustrate the subtleties that arise from the interaction of constraints, random choice and recursion. We describe operational semantics of these programs (programs are run by sampling random choices), deno...

: We present a new synchronous programming language named SL based on Esterel, in which hypothesis about signal presences or absences are not allowed. Thus, one can decide that a signal was absent during one instant only at the end of this instant, and so reaction to this absence is delayed. Esterel "causality problems" are avoided at the price of replacing strong preemptions by weak ones. An operational semantics based on rewriting rules is given and an implementation is described which allows either to directly execute programs, or to produce automata. Key-words: Parallelism, concurrency, synchronous programming languages, automata, reactive systems. (R'esum'e : tsvp) Unite de recherche INRIA Sophia-Antipolis 2004 route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS Cedex (France) Telephone : (33) 93 65 77 77 -- Telecopie : (33) 93 65 77 65 Le langage synchrone SL R'esum'e : On pr'esente le langage de programmation SL qui est un nouveau langage synchrone construit `a partir d'Estere...