Rich Component Model is a contract based approach to component based design of complex embedded systems. Contracts are designed to support distributed and asynchronous development by different teams, possibly
operating in different companies. Complex systems involve a combination of different aspects, also called viewpoints, such as functions, timing and scheduling, reliability and dependability, resources. Accordingly, components must satisfy contracts corresponding to these different viewpoints. A framework for multiple viewpoint contracts has been defined in the IP-SPEEDS project that is supported by the Heterogeneous Rich
Component (HRC) meta-model. The purpose of this work is to develop the underlying mathematical model of machines supporting such multiple viewpoint contracts. We put the emphasis on combining different viewpoints and providing a simple and elegant notion of parallel composition.
Keywords : components,
contracts, embedded systems.