Designing Concurrent and Distributed Control Systems: an Approach Based on Design Patterns

Developing large control architectures is complex. It usually requires a decomposition in subsystems or control modules, which have to communicate in complex patterns in order to achieve a common objective. Furthermore, control modules operate concurrently, and are usually installed on a distributed computer platform. Analysis of the relationships between elements is of the utmost importance in the design of the architecture. The G++ pattern language is a structured collection of patterns in the line set by Alexander, for the design of large hierarchical and decentralized control systems, commonly found in the Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) domain. This paper summarizes the original G++ patterns language, extends its patterns dealing with the transition from the logical to the physical design in the critical field of reactive/eventdriven systems and shows its range of applicability by developing an example of architecture of cooperative, autonomous, mobile robots.