Applying Publish-Subscribe to Communications-on-theMove Node Control

Abstract: Modern military satellite communications terminals have typically been built as multiprocessor systems. Because of increasing pressure for reuse and modularity, current programs have been encouraged to consider the use of component middleware. While Common Object Request Broker Architecture is the most mature middleware standard available, its invocation semantics present considerable challenges for the development of such systems. Through reasoning about quality attributes, we found that a real-time publish-subscribe middleware reduces coupling, improves composability, and reduces the risk of architectural mismatch, deadlock, and integration problems compared to an invocationbased system. In building a communications-on-the-move (COTM) node, we found that this type of middleware, which exemplifies an implicit-invocation architectural style, promotes ease of system evolution and an incremental integration approach.