Response-time bounds of rule-based programs under rule priority structure

A key index of the performance of a rule-based program used in real-time monitoring and control is its response time, defined by the maximum number of rule firings before a fixed point of the program is reached from a start state. Previous work in computing the response-time bounds for rule-based programs assumes that if two rules are enabled, then either one of them may be scheduled for firing. This assumption may be too conservative in the case when programmers choose to impose a priority structure on the set of rules. In this paper, we discuss how to get tighter bounds by taking rule-priority information into account. We show that the rule-suppression relation we previously introduced can be extended to incorporate rule-priority information. A bound-derivation algorithm for programs whose potential-trigger relations satisfy an acyclicity condition is presented, followed by its correctness proof and an analysis example.<>