A Study in the Use of CORBA in Real-Time Settings: Model Problems for the Manufacturing Domain
Andreas Polze, Daniel Plakosh, Kurt Wallnau · 1997
: The Object Management Group's (OMG) Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is an important and popular technology that supports the development of object-based, distributed applications. The benefits promised by CORBA (abstraction, heterogeneity, etc.) are appealing in many application domains, including those that satisfy real-time requirements---such as manufacturing. Unfortunately, CORBA was not specified in light of real-time requirements, and so the question remains whether existing object request brokers (ORBs) can be used in real-time settings, or whether developers of real-time systems must await future extensions of CORBA that address real-time issues or use non-CORBAcompliant ORBs. In this report, we describe the application of an off-the-shelf ORB to two real-time model problems. Based on our experiences, we believe that today's ORBs can be used in real-time settings, with certain caveats as outlined in this report. We also outline the concept of co...