The Ravenscar Profile for Real-Time and High Integrity Systems

The Ravenscar Profile offers a unique opportunity to developers of real-time and high integrity systems. For the first time in the history of our industry, there is direct support for constructing deterministic, concurrent software within an international standard programming language. The Ravenscar profile is founded on state-of-the art, deterministic concurrency constructs defined in ISO standard Ada95. This results in a set of building blocks that are basic enough for constructing most types of real-time software, while also being sophisticated enough to minimize the risk of error associated with using low-level primitives such as not releasing a lock on all paths. These building blocks are also amenable to the many forms of analyses that can be applied during development to assure the correctness of complex real-time programs, including scheduling and response time analysis, data and information flow analysis, exception freedom, and formal analysis using theorum provers and model checkers. As a result, nonfunctional requirements such as timing and ordering constraints and resource utilization can be established early in the life cycle and consequent reductions in cost, delays, and risk of failure.