Customizing Real-Time Operating Systems with Aspect-Oriented Programming Framework

There is a growing demand for rapidly customizing a complex software system such as a real-time operating system (RTOS) using existing module libraries. While object-oriented and/or component-based software technologies are used for this, they are not fully adequate for RTOS customization since RTOSes contain many crosscutting features that interfere with modularization. Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) attempts to modularize such crosscutting features via modules called aspects, but current implementations of AOP also has limitations to be used in customizing RTOS. Thus, we propose a new AOP framework, in which a software system is naturally designed as a set of interrelated features. Since our framework effectively captures intertwined relationships between features and underlying classes, it can significantly enhances software reuse. It also enables fine-grained customization, which is essential for RTOS customization.