Draft version of generic real-time signal processing core

I've put a new draft design document on line, at
 <http://www.orocos.org/documents/rtlab-design.pdf>.
(The file should be available later tonight, when our servers update
the web pages.)

Comments are most welcome! The document should be read together with
the previous design draft, on events and state machines for the
execution engine.
 <http://www.orocos.org/documents/ipc.pdf>.

Herman

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``Generic real-time infrastructure for signal acquisition,
  generation and processing''

Abstract:
This paper presents the design for the real-time core of a generic
real-time signal acquisition, processing and generation system. The
design is generic in the sense that it can be used in a wide variation
of application domains, from the PLC logic of MatPLC, over medical
signal processing in the RT-Lab project, to the robot motion control
of the Orocos project. It's exactly the functional overlap between
these projects that has stimulated the presented design, in the hope
of gaining more critical mass for the real-time signal processing core
of these, and other, projects. The paper only presents the
design of an application-independent real-time signal processing
infrastructure, and its implementation on a Linux RTOS, but not
the protocols and plug-ins to be provided by the applications, on top
of this infrastructure.