RealNet: a neural network architecture for real-time systems scheduling

Real-time embedded systems are spreading to more and more new fields and their scope and complexity have grown dramatically in the last few years. Nowadays, real-time embedded computers or controllers can be found everywhere, both in very simple devices used in everyday life and in professional environments. Real-time embedded systems have to take into account robustness, safety and timeliness. The most-used schedulability analysis is the worst-case response time proposed by Joseph and Pandya (Comput J 29:390–395,1986). This test provides a bivaluated response (yes/no) indicating whether the processes will meet their corresponding deadlines or not. Nevertheless, sometimes the real-time designer might want to know, more exactly, the probability of the processes meeting their deadlines, in order to assess the risk of a failed scheduling depending on critical requirements of the processes. This paper presents RealNet, a neural network architecture that will generate schedules from timing requirements of a real-time system. The RealNet simulator will provide the designer, after iterating and averaging over some trials, an estimation of the probability that the system will not meet the deadlines. Moreover, the knowledge of the critical processes in these schedules will allow the designer to decide whether changes in the implementation are required.This revised version was published online in November 2004 with a correction to the accepted date.     

Buffer management in real-time active database systems

Real-time active database systems (RTADB) have attracted the attention of researchers in recent times. Such systems are envisioned as control systems for environments as diverse as process control, network management and automated financial trading. Sensors distributed throughout the system report the state of the system to the database. Unacceptable state reports typically results in corrective actions being triggered with deadlines. Thus RTADB's incorporate both real-time as well as active characteristics. We study buffer management in RTADB. Buffer management is recognized as not being a well studied area in real-time systems. As a result of our work, we postulate PAPER, a new buffer management scheme that relies on two strategies: prefetching and priority based buffer replacement. We report the result of studies of the performance of PAPER, as compared to that of existing buffer management algorithms. The insights derived from this paper impact both real-time database systems as well as real-time, active database systems     

基于分布式网络的监控系统

设计了一个基于分布式网络的监控系统.该系统利用网络摄像头采集视频数据,压缩后传送到远程的PC主机,主机对图像帧进行分析,进行人脸识别和步态识别,检测出异常人体,控制摄像头云台进行监视.整个系统使用实时传输协议和实时控制协议,利用网络实现了分布式的视频采集和集中处理,为远程视频监控提供了高效可行性且价格低廉的解决方案,并且具有较强的实时性和可交互性.     

Network access protocol for hard real-time communication systems

Distributed hard real-time systems are characterized by communication messages associated with timing constraints, typically in the form of deadlines. A message should be received at the destination before its deadline expires. Carrier sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) appears to be one of the most common communication network access schemes that can be used in distributed hard real-time systems. In this paper, we propose a new real-time network access protocol which is based on the CSMA/CD scheme. The protocol classifies the messages into two classes as ‘critical’ and ‘noncritical’ messages. The messages close to their deadlines are considered to be critical. A critical message is given the right to access the network by preempting a noncritical message in transmission. Extensive simulation experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the protocol. It is shown that the protocol can provide considerable improvement over the virtual time CSMA/CD protocol proposed for hard real-time communication by Zhao et al.¹.     

Hard real-time communication in multiple-access networks

With the increasing use of distributed hard real-time systems, the ability of computer networks to handle hard real-time message traffic is becoming more important. For traditional networks, maximizing the throughput or minimizing the average message delay is the most important performance criteria. In the hard real-time domain, however, concern focuses on satisfying the time constraints of individual messages. This paper examines recent developments in hard real-time communication in local area multiple-access networks. Two general strategies are used in hard real-time communication: the guarantee strategy and the best-effort strategy. In the former, messages are guaranteed to meet their deadlines during normal operation of the network. In the best-effort strategy, the network will attempt to send messages before their deadlines, but no guarantees are given. Real-time message traffic can be distinguished according to whether it is best suited for the guarantee strategy or the best-effort strategy. Although this paper concentrates on multiple-access networks, many of the concepts presented and lessons learned are also applicable to other types of networks.     

一种基于移动环境的混合乐观实时事务处理策略

随着移动计算技术的快速发展，移动环境下涉及到实时事务处理的应用需求正逐渐增长．由于移动环境下固有特性：高的网络延迟、频繁的断接性和移动性等，采用传统的事务处理技术，在移动环境下很难满足事务的截止期要求．提出了一种基于高优先级两段锁的混合乐观实时事务并发控制协议(HORTCC—SHP2PL)．该协议在移动实时事务处理中将乐观并发控制和高优先级两段锁结舍起来，利用两阶段提交协议实现移动实时事务的全局提交．为了进一步减少移动实时事务重启的数目．在并发控制协议中引入了相似性的概念．仿真实验显示．与分布式高优先级两段锁(HP2PL)比较，HORTCC—SHP2PL明显地减少了实时事务错过截止期的比率，提高了事务的并发度，能更好的满足移动实时事务截止期的要求．     

A systematic approach to designing distributed real-time systems

The authors describe the use of generalized rate monotonic scheduling (GRMS) theory for the design and analysis of a distributed real-time system. This theory ensures that as long as the system utilization of all tasks lies below a certain bound, and appropriate scheduling algorithms are used, all tasks will meet their deadlines. This puts the development and maintenance of real-time systems on an analytic, engineering basis making, these systems easier to develop and maintain. The authors review the recent extensions of the theory to distributed systems scheduling and examine the architectural requirements for use of the theory. They provide an application example to demonstrate the benefits of this theory     

实时工业以太网无线通信节点的设计与实现

实时控制网络是新型网络化、智能化工业装备的重要支撑技术。在研究POWERLINK实时工业以太网协议的基础上,以FPGA为核心,设计和实现了一个实时无线通信嵌入式硬件节点。其中,以FPGA作为实时网络协议栈处理单元,采用并行接口与主控单元实现高速数据交互,并基于典型射频模块实现无线数据传输接口,可支持高速无线数据传输。通过所集成POWERLINK IP核的实时链路层管理机制,实现了工业网络中多节点间数据的无线实时传输。     

基于互联网技术的远程机器人控制器设计

采取利用互联网、IEEE802．11x无线局域网及移动电话网的方法，为轮式移动机器人设计具有视觉功能的远程无线控制器，实现远程无线控制轮式移动机器人的控制器软件、硬件的基本结构和设计方法。设计的两种嵌入式控制器分别在局域网和日本的3G无线移动电话网上进行了实验，在具有视觉功能的轮式移动机器人上实现了利用浏览器通过网络对轮式移动机器人进行远程无线操作控制，并在远程操作计算机上通过网络利用浏览器获取机器人实时视觉图像。     

Real-Time Virtual Channel Flow Control

Real-time communication system support for large scale parallel multicomputers becomes an important issue as the number of real-time applications developed on these systems increases. Flow control is a key component that affects the performance of the communication subsystem. We develop a range of new real-time virtual channel flow control schemes for wormhole networks. The flow control schemes differ in their priority mapping strategies, priority adjustment methods, and arbitration functions. The priority mapping strategy and priority adjustment method of a flow control scheme determine the priority of a message. The priority of a message is used for the virtual channel assignment and the physical channel arbitration. We discuss the trade-off between the performance and the hardware cost of each flow control scheme. A simulator is implemented for studying the performance of the schemes, and simulation experiments are designed to compare the importance of priority mapping, priority adjustment and arbitration toward the system performance. As wormhole networks scale to larger sizes, the average distance between source and destination nodes increases. The flits of messages in wormhole networks, which are buffered in nodes along the path from the source to the destination, consume network resources in these nodes. Therefore, increased scaling may lead to increased resource consumption, congestion, and late messages. In real-time systems, messages lose their value when they miss their deadlines. In order to reduce congestion, we provide a scheme for dropping messages that miss their deadlines.     

基于GPRS和嵌入式Linux的远程图像监控系统

阐述了一种基于GPRs和嵌入式Linux的远程图像监控系统设计和实现方法。该系统主要由嵌入式视频采集终端和监控中心服务器组成。其中,嵌入式视频采集终端主要由摄像头视频采集模块、ARM模块、SIM900模块组成,监控中心服务器可实时监控远程终端的图像。系统软件采用嵌入式Linux,可编程实现图像数据采集、压缩和GPRs模块的网络连接与传输。     

Real-time concurrency control in a multiprocessor environment

Although many high-performance computer systems are now multiprocessor-based, little work has been done in real-time concurrency control of transaction executions in a multiprocessor environment. Real-time concurrency control protocols designed for uniprocessor or distributed environments may not fit the needs of multiprocessor-based real-time database systems because of a lower concurrency degree of transaction executions and a larger number of priority inversions. This paper proposes the concept of a priority cap to bound the maximum number of priority inversions in multiprocessor-based real-time database systems to meet transaction deadlines. We also explore the concept of two-version data to increase the system concurrency level and to explore the abundant computing resources of multiprocessor computer systems. The capability of the proposed methodology is evaluated in a multiprocessor real-time database system under different workloads, database sizes and processor configurations. It is shown that the benefits of the priority cap in reducing the blocking time of urgent transactions are far greater than the losses involved in committing less urgent transactions. The idea of two-version data also greatly improves the system performance because of a much higher concurrency degree in the system     

Distributed real-time embedded systems: Recent advances, future trends and their impact on manufacturing plant control

Real-time and embedded systems have historically been small scale. However, advances in microelectronics and software now allow embedded systems to be composed of a large set of processing elements, and the trend is towards significant enhanced functionality, complexity, and scalability, since those systems are increasingly being connected by wired and wireless networks to create large-scale distributed real-time embedded systems (DRES). Such embedded computing and information technologies have become at the same time an enabler for future manufacturing enterprises as well as a transformer of organizations and markets. This paper discusses opportunities for using recent advances in the DRES area in the deployment of intelligent, adaptive, and reconfigurable manufacturing plant control architectures.     

基于S3C2440的无线传输系统的研究

随着嵌入式系统和无线网络的飞速发展,嵌入式的无线图像传输系统成为研究的热点。系统硬件以微处理器S3C2440A为核心,USB摄像头作为图像采集设备,USB无线网卡作为图像传输设备。软件采用Linux操作系统开发,经过系统移植和驱动开发,最终实现硬件平台和上位机之间图像的传输。     

带时延补偿的视觉跟踪控制

在实际的视觉伺服系统中, 由于摄像机到图像处理设备的传输延迟和图像处理本身占用的时间, 视觉信息的获取会产生时延. 对此, 给出了一个带有时延补偿的视觉跟踪控制方法. 通过实时拟合图像雅可比矩阵, 实现了对机械手末端执行器图像特征信息的实时预测, 从而减小了估计误差. 在此基础上, 设计了一个带有时延补偿的控制方案. 通过对运动目标进行跟踪的仿真实验, 验证了本文时延补偿方法的有效性.     

High performance real-time scheduling of multiple mixed-criticality functions in heterogeneous distributed embedded systems

The architectures of high-end embedded system have evolved into heterogeneous distributed integrated architectures. The scheduling of multiple distributed mixed-criticality functions in heterogeneous distributed embedded systems is a considerable challenge because of the different requirements of systems and functions. Overall scheduling length (i.e., makespan) is the main concern in system performance, whereas deadlines represent the major timing constraints of functions. Most algorithms use the fairness policies to reduce the makespan in heterogeneous distributed systems. However, these fairness policies cannot meet the deadlines of most functions. Each function has different criticality levels (e.g., severity), and missing the deadlines of certain high-criticality functions may cause fatal injuries to people under this situation. This study first constructs related models for heterogeneous distributed embedded systems. Thereafter, the criticality certification, scheduling framework, and fairness of multiple heterogeneous earliest finish time (F_MHEFT) algorithm for heterogeneous distributed embedded systems are presented. Finally, this study proposes a novel algorithm called the deadline-span of multiple heterogeneous earliest finish time (D_MHEFT), which is a scheduling algorithm for multiple mixed-criticality functions. The F_MHEFT algorithm aims at improving the performance of systems, while the D_MHEFT algorithm tries to meet the deadlines of more high-criticality functions by sacrificing a certain performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the D_MHEFT algorithm can significantly reduce the deadline miss ratio (DMR) and keep satisfactory performance over existing methods.     

基于LPC2214的嵌入式网络摄像机

介绍了一种基于嵌入式Linux操作系统的网络摄像机.在LPC2214的硬件基础上,通过对嵌入式Linux进行定制,建立嵌入式Web服务器,实现视频数据的网络实时传输.该系统具有响应时间短、稳定性高和可扩展性好的特点.     

Performance estimation for real-time distributed embedded systems

Many embedded computing systems are distributed systems: communicating processes executing on several CPUs/ASICs. This paper describes a performance analysis algorithm for a set of tasks executing on a heterogeneous distributed system. Tight bounds are essential to the synthesis and verification of application-specific distributed systems, such as embedded computing systems. Our bounding algorithms are valid for a general problem model: The system can contain several tasks with hard real-time deadlines and different periods; each task is partitioned into a set of processes related by data dependencies. The periods of tasks and the computation times of processes are not necessarily constant and can be specified by a lower bound and an upper bound. Such a model requires a more sophisticated algorithm, but leads to more accurate results than previous work. Our algorithm both provides tighter bounds and is faster than previous methods     

一种基于自定义以太网帧的高速数据传输协议及在成像系统中的应用*

针对将TCP/IP协议栈运用在嵌入式成像系统中作为通信方式时所存在的传输速度较低的不足,提出一种将数据封装在自定义以太网帧中进行传输的通信方式,并针对这种方式实现了网卡的驱动,定义了3种帧格式它们分别用于启动曝光、数据传输、数据重传等,设计一种基于状态机的控制协议实现相机的控制及图像数据的传输,最终在硬件平台上实现基于这种方法的成像系统。实验测试表明在NiosII嵌入式处理器工作在150MHz、uCosII操作系统条件下,基于自定义以太网帧的传输方式能将图像数据的传输速率提升4倍以上,这种方式特别适用于传输速率要求较高且资源有限的嵌入式程序成像系统。     

一种基于乐观方法的安全实时并发控制协议

实时数据库通常应用在一些安全关键类应用中，如电子商务、股票交易、军事指挥系统等。在这样一些应用中，实时数据库系统需同时满足两方面的需求：确保数据安全和尽可能减低实时事务错过截止期的比率。然而，通常这两方面需求是相互冲突的，满足一方面是以牺牲另一方面为代价。本文提出了一种基于乐观方法的安全实时并发控制协议，该协议将安全约束整合到实时乐观并发控制协议中，并能根据应用的需求在安全性和实时性方面进行了适当的折中。性能测试结果显示，该协议在确保数据安全的同时并未明显地降低实时性能。