Conditions for compatibility of components: The case of masters and slaves

Abstract

We consider systems composed of reactive components that collaborate through synchronised execution of common actions. These multi-component systems are formally represented as team automata, a model that allows a wide spectrum of synchronisation policies to combine components into higher-level systems. We investigate the correct-by-construction engineering of such systems of systems from the point of view of correct communications between the components (no message loss or deadlocks due to indefinite waiting). This leads to a proposal for a generic definition of compatibility of components relative to the adopted synchronisation policy. This definition appears to be particularly appropriate for so-called master-slave synchronisations by which input actions (for `slaves') are driven by output actions (from `masters').