Eric Gressier-Soudan

A framework for real-time communication based object oriented industrial messaging services

The goal of the ongoing project described in this paper is to provide an object oriented real-time industrial messaging service on top of a Quality of Service (QoS) aware Object Request Broker (ORE) with real time network communications. Our project has investigated object oriented solutions for industrial messaging services. The corresponding prototype offers a portable object oriented industrial messaging service implemented in Java. We have built a QoS aware extension of this service based on Jonathan, a flexible ORE that allows the introduction of temporal QoS to handle real time constraints. The full prototype is based on the AJAX toolkit, our binding factory for ATM networks.

Component oriented control architecture: the COCA project

Abstract The object-oriented CORBA communication protocol is used to implement the ISO manufacturing message specification (MMS) in a distributed object oriented manner. This brings operating system independent communication capabilities to devices such as NC machine-tools and to the various technical management applications expected in modern workshops, even of small size. Implementation of MMS concepts in the CORBA environment is particularly discussed. Prototype development is under course in an effective industrial platform.

Enhancing numerical controllers, using MMS concepts and a CORBA-based software bus

Open Manufacturing Equipment is mandatory to answer the demand of modern manufacturing for distributed monitoring or automation, and to allow fast system reconfiguration. This project is inspired by the reference models defined by the ISO/OSI Manufacturing Message Specification for remote machine tool supervision (MMS) and the Open System Architecture within Control Applications (OSACA). Instead of proposing MMS or OSACA protocols for communication, we propose a unified object-oriented solution based on the OMG-CORBA software bus. Adopting a common object-oriented approach for both remote communication and internal architecture of a NC platform is conceivable. It leads to a design very close to the one proposed in the mentioned standards. The consequences of including a Manufacturing Object Messaging System on the NC design model are discussed. A Java- and CORBA-based demonstration prototype has been developed. Finally, the paper describes how we address real-time constraints on communications.

Application patterns for cyber-physical systems

Patterns are of great interest for bootstraping complex systems such as networked cyber-physical systems (NCPS). Inspired by a new programming paradigm based on partially ordered knowledge sharing model for loosely coupled distributed computing and its implementation in our cyber-application framework, this paper studies how to program an NCPS and exploit the capabilities provided by the underlying framework. By identifying common patterns across a variety of use-cases - e.g., cyber-physical game, local anonymous chat, and collaborative brainstorming applications - we focus on design principles of NCPS, identifying the key abstractions, how they interact with the user and the knowledge system, how the ordering among knowledge items can be defined, and what features of knowledge dissemination are the most effective for certain scenarios.

A real-time IPC service over ATM networks for the Chorus distributed system

Describes a real-time interprocess communication (RT-IPC) service that is suitable for distributed systems built over ATM networks. This location-transparent communication service offers end-to-end quality of service (QoS) guarantees and end-to-end priority propagation. It relies on a specific real-time ATM adaptation layer (AAL-RT) that allows the transmission of a low-priority message to be pre-empted by a higher-priority one, and on a transport service which is in charge of QoS negotiation, the setting up of the ATM virtual channel and priority inheritance. The RT-IPC service is implemented in the Chorus distributed operating system as servers running in the micro-kernel address space. It is used for real-time communication within ANTARA real-time clusters, and allows communication at a user rate of up to 130 Mbps over 155-Mbps ATM links. The end-to-end transfer delay between participants is less than 400 /spl mu/s.

Exploring contemporary painting through spatial annotations using RFID tags

One of the least explored RFID application-domains concerns the areas of entertainment and culture. This paper proposes a mobile application -conceived for and with a contemporary artist- allowing the spatial annotation of paintings and the delivery of multimedia related interpretation material to the concerned public, through the combined use of RFID tags and NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones, serving as delivery platforms. The paper reports on the design and implementation of the application as well as on the results of a first, proof-of-concept, evaluation.

Player profile management on NFC smart card for multiplayer ubiquitous games

One of the goals of mixed reality and ubiquitous computing technologies is to provide an adaptable and personal content at any moment, anywhere, and in any context. In Multiplayer Ubiquitous Games (MUGs), players have to interact in the real world at both physical and virtual levels. Player profiles in MUGs offer an opportunity to provide personalized services to gamers. This paper presents a way to manage MUG player profiles on an NFC Smart Card, and proposes a Java API to integrate Smart Cards in the development of MUGs. This user centric approach brings new forms of gameplay, allowing the player to interact with the game or with other players any time and anywhere. Smart Cards should also help improve the security, ubiquity, and the user mobility in traditional MUGs.

AspectTAZ : a new approach based on aspect oriented programming for object oriented industrial messaging services design

Since 1994, we have designed and prototyped several industrial messaging services over different platforms. Our experiments have been based on the ISO-MMS standard and TASE.2. This paper describes lessons learned from these projects, and some of our activities in designing the next generation of industrial messaging services. Faced with the fast changing world of communication protocols, a stringent requirement for these services is to be easily adaptable to new protocols (ONC-RPC and CORBA in the past, now SOAP/XML). Recent software engineering research introduced the notion of aspect-oriented programming (AOP) to cope with such a need in adaptability. This paper demonstrates the viability of this approach in addressing our requirement.

Prototyping QoS based architecture for power plant control applications

The goal of the project is to gain experience on QoS (quality of service) based distributed system for EDFs power control applications. EDF is the French power utility. QoS is related to time constraints in this case. We adopted a distributed system approach to build our execution platform. The first prototype uses a modified ChorusOS micro-kernel with a real-time inter-process communication facility based on an ATM network and supports a specific real-time Java Virtual Machine. Our second proposal attempts to build an equivalent architecture using off-the-shelf products. Reality constraints lead to a CoS (classification of service) based design. We show that there is no available off-the-shelf QoS or CoS based technology for real-time object oriented distributed applications.

Monitoring the Distributed Virtual Orchestra with a CORBA Based Object Oriented Real-Time Data Distribution Service

This paper presents a CORBA based object oriented real-time data distribution service and its use to monitor our distributed virtual orchestra over a campus LAN. This service offers two types of data management policies: periodic exchanges and condition based exchanges. The distributed virtual orchestra uses the jMax engine to generate automatically sounds (virtual player), play and transform the music from real musicians (real player). Each player is connected to a PC and sends its high quality audio stream through the network. Real players hear each other, including the sounds from virtual players, and are self-synchronized. The jMax engine is modeled by a virtual sound automaton remotely monitored through our real-time data distribution service. The monitoring service is effective and has been used for jMax management during musical performance. Future works deal with a CORBA-CCM based monitoring service.