A functionally distributed responsive micro controller for distributed real-time processing

Abstract

We propose a functionally distributed responsive (reactive in real-time) microcontroller for distributed real-time processing, which can control personal robots, home automation, office automation, etc. A responsive controller is composed of a mother module and an I/O card customizable for its specific application. A common mother module is composed of a processor, a memory system, an I/O card bus interface for its daughter card, and high-speed real-time links called responsive links. In order to realize hard real-time communication needed for robot control, sensing, etc., a responsive link consists of a pair of full-duplex data lines and two-way event lines. Many kinds of systems can be flexibly composed by connecting any number of the responsive controllers using the responsive links.