Formal specification of a real-time lift dispatching system

This paper describes the formal specification of a lift dispatching system (LDS) by the real-time process algebra (RTPA). It is recognized that the specification of a real-time system is a hard problem because the specification has to address the 3D behaviors of software where timing, logic and dynamic memory allocation functionalities are very critical. The real-time process algebra (RTPA) is a descriptive formal notation system designed for real-time software system specification, and is able to address the 3D properties of real-time software systems. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of RTPA in describing a lift dispatching system (LDS). The case study on LDS illustrates the applications of RTPA in real-time system specification and refinement. This case study on the realtime LDS system shows the features and advantages of the algebra-based approach to real-time system specification and refinement in RTPA.