Hybrid systems: a real-time interface to control engineering

An important application area for real time computing is embedded systems where the computing system provides intelligent control of a mechanical, chemical etc. plant or device. The software requirements for such applications depend heavily on the properties of the plant. These properties are usually investigated by control engineers that base their work on the theory of dynamic systems. The mathematical tool for this work is thus mathematical analysis, in particular the theory of differential equations. The paper gives an introduction to a general hybrid systems model for definition of system requirements and a corresponding software architecture together with an example of their specialization for use in implementing a mode switching controller for a hydraulic cylinder.