This book presents a methodology for the real-time scheduling problems of real-time systems (RTS) from the viewpoint of control theory. Generally, any system can be viewed as an RTS if it performs real-time application functions and behaves correctly depending on given logical activities and satisfying specified deadlines for the activities. This monograph provides broad views and detailed introductions to supervisory control theory (SCT) and its application in real-time scheduling and reconfiguration. Based on three popular SCT modelling frameworks, discrete-event system (DES), timed DES (TDES), and state-tree structures (STS), the authors provide RTS modelling frameworks; thereafter, SCT is used to find their safe execution sequences. As the main contribution, we use (untimed) DES events to represent the execution and preemption of each individual RTS task. This modelling formalism brings the possibilities to model the preemptions of tasks’ executions. Furthermore, in some cases, priorities cannot be assigned to real-time tasks. In order to solve this problem, a matrix-based priority-free conditional-preemption (PFCP) relation is provided, which generalizes fixed-priority (FP) RTS scheduling. As a natural extension, a generalized modular modelling framework is presented to model the task parameters instead of the global real-time task. The modular models are taken to be generic entities, which also considers the exact execution time of real-time tasks. STS are undoubtedly recognized as a computationally efficient SCT framework which manages the state explosion problem significantly. Hence, building on the (untimed) modular RTS models, a novel STS-based RTS modeling framework is formulated, by assigning dynamic priorities as specified optimality criteria, which can be utilized to model sporadic RTS processing both sporadic and (multi-period) periodic tasks, providing a small set of the safe execution sequences which rank at the top.

Given the widespread use of real-time multitasking systems, there are tremendous optimization opportunities if reconfigurable computing can be effectively incorporated while maintaining performance and other design constraints of typical applications. The focus of this book is to describe the dynamic reconfiguration techniques that can be safely used in real-time systems. This book provides comprehensive approaches by considering synergistic effects of computation, communication as well as storage together to significantly improve overall performance, power, energy and temperature.

We present a technique for automatically preparing a module to capture and restore its state during reconfiguration, given a set of reconfiguration points designated by the programmer. Our focus in this paper is on the difficult problem of capturing and restoring the state of a module in the midst of a procedure call, when the information stored in the activation record stack is a crucial part of the process state."

Computer scientists have long appreciated that the relationship between algorithms and architecture is crucial. Broadly speaking the more specialized the architecture is to a particular algorithm then the more efficient will be the computation. The penalty is that the architecture will become useless for computing anything other than that algorithm. This message holds for the algorithms used in real-time automatic control as much as any other field. These Proceedings will provide researchers in this field with a useful up-to-date reference source of recent developments.

Dynamically Reconfigurable Systems is the first ever to focus on the emerging field of Dynamically Reconfigurable Computing Systems. While programmable logic and design-time configurability are well elaborated and covered by various texts, this book presents a unique overview over the state of the art and recent results for dynamic and run-time reconfigurable computing systems. Reconfigurable hardware is not only of utmost importance for large manufacturers and vendors of microelectronic devices and systems, but also a very attractive technology for smaller and medium-sized companies. Hence, Dynamically Reconfigurable Systems also addresses researchers and engineers actively working in the field and provides them with information on the newest developments and trends in dynamic and run-time reconfigurable systems.

Distributed computer control is at the intersection between control engineering and computer science. Containing 22 papers, this book provides an up-to-date reference source of important issues in the design and implementation of distributed real-time computer systems.

The series Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI) publishes new developments and advances in the various areas of computational intelligence-quickly and with a high quality. The intent is to cover the theory, applications, and design methods of computational intelligence, as embedded in the fields of engineering, computer science, physics and life science, as well as the methodologies behind them. The series contains monographs, lecture notes and edited volumes in computational intelligence spanning the areas of neural networks, connectionist systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary computation, artificial intelligence, cellular automata, self-organizing systems, soft computing, fuzzy systems and hybrid intelligent systems. Critical to both contributors and readers are the short publication time and world-wide distribution-this permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results. The purpose of the 10th International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications(SERA 2012) held on May 3- June 1, 2012 in Shanghai, China was to bring together scientists, engineers, computer users, and students to share their experiences and exchange new ideas and research results about all aspects (theory, applications and tools) of Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications, and to discuss the practical challenges encountered along the way and the solutions adopted to solve them. The conference organizers selected 12 outstanding papers from those papers accepted for presentation at the conference in order to publish them in this volume. The papers were chosen based on review scores submitted by members of the program committee, and further rigorous rounds of review.

This classroom-tested textbook describes the design and implementation of software for distributed real-time systems, using a bottom-up approach. The text addresses common challenges faced in software projects involving real-time systems, and presents a novel method for simply and effectively performing all of the software engineering steps. Each chapter opens with a discussion of the core concepts, together with a review of the relevant methods and available software. This is then followed with a description of the implementation of the concepts in a sample kernel, complete with executable code. Topics and features: introduces the fundamentals of real-time systems, including real-time architecture and distributed real-time systems; presents a focus on the real-time operating system, covering the concepts of task, memory, and input/output management; provides a detailed step-by-step construction of a real-time operating system kernel, which is then used to test various higher level implementations; describes periodic and aperiodic scheduling, resource management, and distributed scheduling; reviews the process of application design from high-level design methods to low-level details of design and implementation; surveys real-time programming languages and fault tolerance techniques; includes end-of-chapter review questions, extensive C code, numerous examples, and a case study implementing the methods in real-world applications; supplies additional material at an associated website. Requiring only a basic background in computer architecture and operating systems, this practically-oriented work is an invaluable study aid for senior undergraduate and graduate-level students of electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. The text will also serve as a useful general reference for researchers interested in real-time systems.

Real-Time Systems Engineering and Applications is a well-structured collection of chapters pertaining to present and future developments in real-time systems engineering. After an overview of real-time processing, theoretical foundations are presented. The book then introduces useful modeling concepts and tools. This is followed by concentration on the more practical aspects of real-time engineering with a thorough overview of the present state of the art, both in hardware and software, including related concepts in robotics. Examples are given of novel real-time applications which illustrate the present state of the art. The book concludes with a focus on future developments, giving direction for new research activities and an educational curriculum covering the subject. This book can be used as a source for academic and industrial researchers as well as a textbook for computing and engineering courses covering the topic of real-time systems engineering.