| 摘要 |
The present invention constitutes a deterministic real time hierarchical distributed computer system. This invention constitutes a computer system using specific computer hardware and computer software designs combined in a hierarchical structure that is inherently deterministic and operates in real time with processing distributed among a number of different processors. In addition to real time deterministic operation, the other benefits of the invention are: ease of design, use, and maintenance; transparency; scalability; design re-usability; and inherent design longevity. The computer system is comprised of three main components: the core processing unit, the software rules and protocols, and the system architecture. The core processing unit is the basic computational unit in the computer system. The complete system consists of a number of distributed core processing units. These core processing units are distributed in a hierarchical architecture. Core processing units at the top of the hierarchy and at all intermediate levels perform supervisory control, monitoring, and message passing functions. Core processors at terminating points in the hierarchical structure: control and/or monitor devices, machines, and instruments; or execute applications and perform computational functions. The number of core processing units and their distribution depends on what the computer system is designed to accomplish. Because of the inherent flexibility of the computer system, it can be structured to accomplish any computational task including industrial control and monitoring, data acquisition, instrument control, embedded control process control and monitoring, general purpose computing and virtually any other computing task. The function of the hierarchical distributed architecture is to facilitate deterministic real time operation of the computer system. This architecture combined with the basic structure inherent in each core processing unit and the software protocols and rules followed by the embedded code in each core processing unit guarantee determinism and real time response as well as all of the other beneficial features and characteristics of the system listed above.
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