Disciplined approach to real-time systems design

TARDIS is a generic framework that prescribes mechanisms needed during software development to cater for 'nonfunctional' system requirements. These requirements have been treated in an ad hoc manner in the past, but the increasing importance of safety-critical embedded systems demands more rigorous approaches. The TARDIS framework mandates the inclusion of nonfunctional goals during initial requirements specification and subsequent adherence to these requirements through all phases of software development. The role of TARDIS during specification and high-level design of a software system with stringent real-time goals is illustrated.