Context-Aware Process Networks

Abstract — In industry, embedded systems for stream-based processing are often modelled and verified by using process networks, such as Kahn process networks. An advantage of Kahn networks is that they allow asynchronous operation of process components in a network. A problem in these networks, however, is that asynchronously interfering events cannot be handled properly because they are intrinsically indeterminate and therefore destroy the compositional properties of the network. In this paper, we propose to extend the Kahn model of computations with a simple indeterminate construct. We call the resulting network a context-aware process network (CAPN). We show that these networks are capable of handling certain classes of events and can still be reduced to a class of parametrised Kahn networks. Index Terms — asynchronous communication, asynchronous coordination