Technology
Real-time OS & the 1 ms window
The operating system that makes the whole vehicle act as one: a single shared state, rewritten every millisecond.
In one sentence The ASG real-time OS commits one shared information window across the whole vehicle every millisecond, so every zone module acts on the same state at the same instant.
The 1 ms window
A stylised view of the commit. At real time it happens a thousand times a second; drag the slider to slow it down and watch every node land together.
t = 00:00.000 · 92 nodes committed · 0 µs skew · 1000× dilated
One shared state, not many inboxes
A conventional vehicle assembles its picture of itself in software, from the messages each ECU happens to receive. ASG inverts that. The master clock commits one shared information window every millisecond, and every module reads the whole vehicle state, and the control vectors, straight from it.
Because the data is tied to the synchronisation grid, a function can process the whole state as one vector rather than reconciling a stream of arrivals. ASG’s own materials put the processing gain at three to four times, with simpler control programs as the larger benefit.
Simultaneous, not sequential
On each commit, every module updates at the same instant. There is no token passed around the ring, no sequential propagation, and no per-module time slot. Model it as a global barrier: gather every function’s outputs, then commit them all at once.
Computation is time-parallel across the modules distributed through the vehicle volume: many chips working on the same window at the same time, rather than one central computer working through a queue.
The 10 µs reaction
Separate from the 1 ms window, each block has a local reaction time of about 10 microseconds. It is built-in short-circuit prevention, an electronic fuse, which is why ASG needs no relays. It is a property of the block, not a step the engine performs.
| Commit period | 1 ms | The master clock commits one shared window across the whole vehicle |
|---|---|---|
| Local block reaction | ~10 µs | The electronic fuse: metadata on a module, not a time step |
| Modules | up to ~20 | The 1 ms is unchanged across this range |
| Per module | Full state + control vectors | The System Window, tied to the synchronisation grid |
The 1 ms and 10 µs are modelled values from ASG’s protocol description.
Connecting existing systems
Systems that are already installed connect straight to a zone module. The module translates their CAN, LIN or serial traffic into the shared vehicle state and answers back in the original format, so a vehicle can move onto ASG one domain at a time rather than all at once, with no separate gateway.
Questions
Does the 1 ms change as I add modules?
No. Up to about twenty modules the commit period is fixed. A new module takes a carrier on the channel, not window time.
Is this hard real-time?
Yes. The global commit is a fixed 1 ms and the local block reaction is about 10 microseconds.
What is the information window?
The shared global state of the vehicle, committed atomically every millisecond. Every module reads the whole state and control vectors from it, tied to the same synchronisation grid.
Does a signal travel around the ring?
No. On each commit every module updates in the same instant. Nothing propagates from node to node, and there are no per-module time slots.