Ken Tindell

Applying new scheduling theory to static priority pre-emptive scheduling

The paper presents exact schedulability analyses for real-time systems scheduled at runtime with a static priority pre-emptive dispatcher. The tasks to be scheduled are allowed to experience internal blocking (from other tasks with which they share resources) and (with certain restrictions) to release jitter, such as waiting for a message to arrive. The analysis presented is more general than that previously published and subsumes, for example, techniques based on the Rate Monotonic approach. In addition to presenting the relevant theory, an existing avionics case study is described and analysed. The predictions that follow from this analysis are seen to be in close agreement with the behaviour exhibited during simulation studies.

Holistic schedulability analysis for distributed hard real-time systems

This paper extends the current analysis associated with static priority pre-emptive based scheduling to address the wider problem of analysing schedulability of a distributed hard real-time system; in particular it derives analysis for a distributed system where tasks with arbitrary deadlines communicate by message passing and shared data areas. A simple TDMA protocol is assumed, and analysis developed to bound not only the communications delays, but also the delays and overheads incurred when messages are processed by the protocol stack at the destination processor. The paper illustrates how a window-based analysis technique can be used to find the worst-case response times of a distributed task set. An extended example illustrating the application of the analysis is presented.

An extendible approach for analyzing fixed priority hard real-time tasks

As the real-time computing industry moves away from static cyclic executive-based scheduling towards more flexible process-based scheduling, so it is important for current scheduling analysis techniques to advance and to address more realistic application areas. This paper extends the current analysis associated with static priority pre-emptive based scheduling; in particular it derives analysis for tasks with arbitrary deadlines that may suffer release jitter due to being dispatched by a tick driven scheduler. We also consider bursty sporadic activities, where tasks arrive sporadically but then execute periodically for some bounded time. The paper illustrates how a window-based analysis technique can be used to find the worst-case response time of a task set, and shows that the technique can be easily extended to cope with realistic and complex task characteristics.

Calculating controller area network (can) message response times

Abstract Controller Area Network (CAN) is a well-designed communications bus for sending and receiving short real-time control messages at speeds of up to 1Mbit/sec. One of the perceived drawbacks to CAN has been the inability to bound accurately the worst-case response time of a given message (i.e., the longest time between queueing the message and the message arriving at the destination processors). This paper presents an analysis to bound such latencies. A benchmark is used to illustrate the application of this analysis.

Fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling: an historical perspective

From its roots in job-shop scheduling, research into fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling theory has progressed from the artificial constraints and simplistic assumptions used in early work to a sufficient level of maturity that it is being increasingly used in the implementation of real-time systems. It is therefore appropriate that within this special issue we provide an historical perspective on the development of fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling.

Allocating hard real-time tasks: an NP-hard problem made easy

A distributed hard real time system can be composed from a number of communicating tasks. One of the difficulties with building such systems is the problem of where to place the tasks. In general there are PT ways of allocating T tasks to P processors, and the problem of finding an optimal feasible allocation (where all tasks meet physical and timing constraints) is known to be NP-Hard. This paper describes an approach to solving the task allocation problem using a technique known as simulated annealing. It also defines a distributed hard real-time architecture and presents new analysis which enables timing requirements to be guaranteed.

Scheduling slack time in fixed priority pre-emptive systems

This paper addresses the problem of jointly scheduling tasks with both hard and soft time constraints. We present a new analysis which builds upon previous research into slack stealing algorithms. Our analysis determines the maximum processing time which may be stolen from hard deadline periodic or sporadic tasks, without jeopardising their timing constraints. It extends to tasks with characteristics such as synchronization, release jitter and stochastic execution times, as well as forming the basis for a family of optimal and approximate slack stealing algorithms.<<ETX>>

Analysis of hard real-time communications

In a distributed hard real-time system, communications between tasks on different processors must occur in bounded time. The inevitable communication delay is composed of both the delay in transmitting a message on the communications media, and also the delay in delivering the data to the destination task. This paper derives schedulability analysis bounding the media access delay and the delivery delay. Two access protocols are considered: a simple timed token passing approach, and a real-time priority broadcast bus. A simple delivery approach is considered where the arrival of a message generates an interrupt—the so-called ‘on demand’ approach.

Effective analysis for engineering real-time fixed priority schedulers

There has been considerable activity in recent years in developing analytical techniques for hard real-time systems. Inevitably these techniques make simplifying assumptions so as to reduce the complexity of the problem to be solved. Unfortunately this leads to a gap between theory and engineering practice. The paper presents new analysis that enables the costs of the scheduler (clock overheads, queue manipulations and release delays) to be factored into the standard equations for calculating worst-case response times. As well as predicting the true behavior of realistic systems, the analysis also allows free parameters, such as clock interrupt rate, to be determined. >

Mode changes in priority preemptively scheduled systems

It is noted that in many hard real-time systems, the set of functions that a system is required to provide may change over time. One way of providing this change is to allow currently running hard real-time tasks to be deleted or changed, or new tasks to be added. The authors define this change as a mode change, and seek to guarantee a priori the timing constraints of all tasks across the change from one mode to another. The authors derive a scheduling theory for static priority preemptive scheduling that can be used to make such guarantees. The schedulability test discussed could easily be incorporated into engineering support tools. The authors also discuss some of the approaches that could be taken to extend the analysis to cope with more complex and interesting scheduling problems, and to handle distributed hard real-time systems.<<ETX>>