Testing and debugging in real time systems-design decisions to use a distributed computer architecture in a real time application

A description is given of the design decisions that lead to a distributed computer architecture along with the computer´s test and debugging facilities. This architecture was developed for an autonomous mobile robot and supports the special data processing structure of such real-time applications. Time behavior considerations led to the use of a distributed computer architecture with static task distribution and without a multitasking environment in the nodes. Because the nodes are thus loosely coupled and exchange their results via a communication system with a separate processor, the modules and the communication between them can easily be monitored without influencing the time behavior by listening to the data and results transported by the communication system