Dynamic Dispatching of Cyclic Real-Time Tasks with Relative Timing Constraints

In some hard real-time systems, relative timing constraints may be imposed on task executions, in addition to the release time and deadline constraints. Relative timing constraints such as separation or relative deadline constraints may be given between start or finish times of tasks (Gerber et al., 1995; Han and Lin, 1989; Han et al., 1992; Han and Lin, 1992; Han et al., 1996).One approach in real-time scheduling is to find a total order on a set of N tasks in a scheduling window, and cyclically use this order at run time to execute tasks. However, in the presence of relative timing constraints, if the task execution times are nondeterministic with defined lower and upper bounds, it is not always possible to statically assign task start times at pre-runtime for a given task ordering (Gerber et al., 1995).We develop a technique called dynamic cyclic dispatching as an extension of a parametric dispatching mechanism in (Gerber et al., 1995). An ordered set of N tasks is assumed to be given in a scheduling window and this schedule(ordering) is cyclically repeated at runtime in consecutive scheduling windows. Relative timing constraints between tasks may be defined across scheduling window boundaries as well as within one scheduling window. A task set is defined to be dispatchable if there exists any way in which the tasks can be dispatched with all their timing constraints satisfied. An off-line algorithm is presented to check the dispatchability of a task set and to obtain parametric lower and upper bound functions for task start times if the task set is dispatchable. These parametric bound functions are evaluated at runtime to obtain a valid time interval during which a task can be started. The complexity of this off-line component is shown to be O(n ² N ³) where n is the number of tasks in a scheduling window that have relative timing constraints with tasks in the next scheduling window. An online algorithm can evaluate these bounds in O(N) time.Unlike static approaches which assign fixed start times to tasks in the scheduling window, our approach allows us to flexibly manage the slack times at runtime without sacrificing the dispatchability of tasks. Also, a wider class of relative timing constraints can be imposed to the task set compared to the traditional approaches.     

基于对象的分布式实时系统调度模型研究

为了解决分布式实时系统有关分配和调度等问题，给出并用形式化方法描述了一种基于对象分布式实时系统调度的通用模型。该模型包括表示时限的绝对时间约束，表示周期属性的周期约束，表示各种前趋关系和同步要求的相对时间约束以及保证资源使用一致性的一致性约束，此外该模型克服了以往模型不能在应用系统的逻辑和功能部件上描述系统实时的约束的不足，允许从方法和活动上描述所需的约束，降低了单一约束描述的繁杂程度，为了能够使用现有调度算法进行任务调度，讨论了约束转换的问题，给出了高层约束到底层约束的转换规则和相应的转换算法。     

Algorithmic aspects of area-efficient hardware/software partitioning

Area efficiency is one of the major considerations in constraint aware hardware/software partitioning process. This paper focuses on the algorithmic aspects for hardware/software partitioning with the objective of minimizing area utilization under the constraints of execution time and power consumption. An efficient heuristic algorithm running in O(n log n) is proposed by extending the method devised for solving the 0-1 knapsack problem. Also, an exact algorithm based on dynamic programming is proposed to produce the optimal solution for small-sized problems. Simulation results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm yields very good approximate solutions while dramatically reducing the execution time.     

时间约束混合流水车间调度问题综述

车间调度是智能制造领域中的核心问题之一, 在经典流水车间调度中, 所有工件按照相同的加工顺序在指 定机床上加工. 混合流水车间调度(HFS)作为流水车间调度的特例, 相比前者增加了机床选择的灵活性, 可以显著 优化系统目标, 但同时也增加了问题求解的难度. 由于时间约束HFS相比基本HFS问题更贴近实际生产过程, 近年 来, 综合考虑各类时间相关约束的HFS问题得到了深入研究. 因此, 本文围绕基本HFS、有限等待时间HFS、带准备 时间HFS、模糊/随机加工时间HFS、多时间约束HFS、时间约束相关多目标HFS等问题开展研究. 针对每一类时间 约束HFS问题, 按照问题规模对当前研究成果进行分类描述, 按照确定性算法、启发式方法、元启发式方法、算法混 合对相关成果进行算法分类, 按照实际工业应用对文献进行归类分析. 另一方面, 围绕交货期、能耗、成本等3类性 能指标, 分析了在各类时间约束HFS问题中的多目标优化相关成果. 最后详细分析了带时间约束HFS问题在问题层 面、算法层面和应用层面存在的挑战性问题和未来研究的方向.     

Extension of <Emphasis Type="Italic">O</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis> log <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>) Filtering Algorithms for the Unary Resource Constraint to Optional Activities

Scheduling is one of the most successful application areas of constraint programming mainly thanks to special global constraints designed to model resource restrictions. Among these global constraints, edge-finding and not-first/not-last are the most popular filtering algorithms for unary resources. In this paper we introduce new O(n log n) versions of these two filtering algorithms and one more O(n log n) filtering algorithm called detectable precedences. These algorithms use a special data structures Θ-tree and Θ-Λ-tree. These data structures are especially designed for “what-if” reasoning about a set of activities so we also propose to use them for handling so called optional activities, i.e. activities which may or may not appear on the resource. In particular, we propose new O(n log n) variants of filtering algorithms which are able to handle optional activities: overload checking, detectable precedences and not-first/not-last.     

Resource management and task partitioning and scheduling on a run-time reconfigurable embedded system

There are many design challenges in the hardware-software co-design approach for performance improvement of data-intensive streaming applications with a general-purpose microprocessor and a hardware accelerator. These design challenges are mainly to prevent hardware area fragmentation to increase resource utilization, to reduce hardware reconfiguration cost and to partition and schedule the tasks between the microprocessor and the hardware accelerator efficiently for performance improvement and power savings of the applications.In this paper a modular and block based hardware configuration architecture named memory-aware run-time reconfigurable embedded system (MARTRES) is proposed for efficient resource management and performance improvement of streaming applications. Subsequently we design a task placement algorithm named hierarchical best fit ascending (HBFA) algorithm to prove that MARTRES configuration architecture is very efficient in increased resource utilization and flexible in task mapping and power savings. The time complexity of HBFA algorithm is reduced to O(n) compared to traditional Best Fit (BF) algorithm’s time complexity of O(n²), when the quality of the placement solution by HBFA is better than that of BF algorithm. Finally we design an efficient task partitioning and scheduling algorithm named balanced partitioned and placement-aware partitioning and scheduling algorithm (BPASA). In BPASA we exploit the temporal parallelism in streaming applications to reduce reconfiguration cost of the hardware, while keeping in mind the required throughput of the output data. We balance the exploitation of spatial parallelism and temporal parallelism in streaming applications by considering the reconfiguration cost vs. the data transfer cost. The scheduler refers to the HBFA placement algorithm to check whether contiguous area on FPGA is available before scheduling the task for HW or for SW.     

一种VLSI高层综合低功耗设计方案及实现

提出VLSI高层综合设计方案,该方案基于多电压在时间及资源约束条件下,综合考虑了调度及互连,从调度互连两个角度达到低功耗的目的.该方案提出了基于Gain大小搜索的调度,将功耗增益、灵活度和行为执行密度因素作为折中函数,考虑操作的属性更加全面.在互连中基于分布式的RS互连模型得出互连单元在执行时段里的动态功耗,同时考虑单根总线上的翻转和邻线的耦合.该方案在CDFG工具包中实现并证明了它的有效性.     

Perfect load balancing on the star interconnection network

In this paper, we use the regular distribution method to design a perfect load balancing algorithm for an n-star with a maximum error of 1 and a time complexity of 3n(n+1). This algorithm is based on the novel notion of leader trees. A second algorithm proposed in this paper as an enhancement to our first algorithm and uses an arbitrary spanning tree as the leader tree and has a worst time complexity of 2.25n ²−3n+0.75. We also discuss the issue of dynamically selecting the leader tree and hybrid load balancing algorithms in general. Furthermore, we present a hybrid algorithm for load balancing on the star interconnection network which benefits from a diffusion load balancing preprocessing phase and shows a smaller mean time complexity than our two first algorithms.     

Adaptive fault-tolerant scheduling strategies for mobile cloud computing

Mobile cloud computing is a form of cloud computing that incorporates mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs into the cloud infrastructure. As mobile devices are resource-constrained in nature, new scheduling strategies are required when using them as resource providers. Based on our previous group-based scheduling algorithm, we present fault-tolerant scheduling algorithms considering checkpoint and replication mechanisms to actively cope with faults. We carried out the performance evaluation with simulation to demonstrate that our algorithm is more efficient than the existing one lacking fault tolerance in terms of accuracy rate, resource consumption, and average execution time. In particular, the average execution time was reduced by about 60%, resulting in the reduction of resource consumption.

     

Evolutionary based hybrid GA for solving multi-objective grid scheduling problem

The grid computing aims at bringing computing capacities together in a manner that can be used to find solutions for complicated problems of science. Conventional algorithms like first come first serve (FCFS), shortest job first (SJF) has been used for solving grid scheduling problem (GSP), but the increased complexity and job size led to the poor performance of these algorithms especially in the grid environment due to its dynamic nature. Previously, researchers have used a genetic algorithm (GA) to schedule jobs in the grid environment. In this paper, a multi-objective GSP is solved and optimized using the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm enhances the way the genetic algorithm performs and incorporate significant changes in the initialization step of the algorithm. The proposed algorithm uses SJF during its initialization step for producing the initial population solution. The proposed GA has three key features which are discussed in this paper: It executes jobs with minimum job completion time. It performs load balancing and improves resource utilization. Lastly, it supports scalability. The proposed algorithm is tested using a standard workload (given by Czech National Grid Infrastructure named Metacentrum) which can be a benchmark for further research. A performance comparison shows that the proposed algorithm has got better scheduling results than other scheduling algorithms.

     

带流水作业工程项目调度问题的遗传算法

介绍了带流水作业的工程项目调度问题，这是项目网络中带有流水作业子网络的项目调度问题。它不仅带有常规的时序和资源约束，还带有流水作业所带来的特殊约束。首先给出了带流水作业工程项目调度问题的描述；进而提出一种解决该问题的遗传算法。该算法引入了基于项目划分的编码方式，将个体划分为流水基因段和非流水基因段，并分别进行遗传操作。最后对提出的算法进行了数值计算验证，结果表明了算法的有效性。     

基于多QoS约束的网格任务调度算法

提出一种基于QoS的网格资源管理模型和此模型下基于多QoS约束的网格任务调度算法。引入效益函数对QoS描述建模,为网格任务调度算法提供合理的优化目标。在此基础上改进传统调度算法得到基于多QoS约束的调度算法。实验表明,改进后的算法有更好的性能,更适合应用于网格环境中。     

Bi-criteria and tri-criteria analysis to minimize maximum lateness makespan and resource consumption for scheduling a single machine

We analyze two single machine scheduling problems for the case where job processing times are controllable, by allocating continuous and non-renewable resources to the processing operations. The first problem to analyze is constructing the trade-off curve between maximum lateness and total resource consumption; an O(n ²) computational time optimization algorithm was constructed to solve this problem. This algorithm was extended to solve the second problem, which is to construct the trade-off surface between maximum lateness, makespan, and total resource consumption. As part of this algorithm we identify a plane in the 3D field that is formed by the three criteria, which is parallel only to the maximum lateness, and calculate the optimal makespan and total resource consumption as functions of points on this plane. The extended algorithm keeps the same complexity of O(n ²) time. Both algorithms are very robust as they solve the problem for a very large set of resource consumption functions which has to follow only some mild (and commonly acceptable) conditions. Moreover, as far as we know, this is the first research of its kind in the field of multi-objective scheduling to present an algorithm that constructs a 3D trade-off surface.     

Decentralized querying of topological relations between regions monitored by a coordinate-free geosensor network

Geosensor networks present unique resource constraints to spatial computation, including limited battery power, communication constraints, and frequently a lack of coordinate positioning systems. As a result, there is a need for new algorithms that can efficiently satisfy basic spatial queries within those resource constraints. This paper explores the design and evaluation of a family of new algorithms for determining the topological relations between regions monitored by such a resource-constrained geosensor network. The algorithms are based on efficient, decentralized (in-network) variants of conventional 4-intersection and intersection and difference models, with in-network data aggregation. Further, our algorithms operate without any coordinate information, making them suitable applications where a positioning system is unavailable or unreliable. While all four algorithms are shown to have overall communication complexity O(n) and optimal load balance O(1), the algorithms differ in the level of topological detail they can detect; the types of regions they can monitor; and in the constant factors for communication complexity. The paper also demonstrates the impact of finite granularity observations on the correctness of the query results. In the conclusions, we identify the need to conduct further fundamental research on the relationship between topological relations between regions and limited granularity sensor observations of those regions.     

资源受限多项目调度问题的两阶段算法

在资源受限项目调度问题中,将可更新资源进一步拓展为具有胜任力差异的人力资源,建立考虑胜任力差异的人力资源受限多目标项目调度问题模型.该模型是对传统多模式资源约束项目调度问题更接近研发项目群实际的扩展.针对模型提出两阶段优化算法,第1阶段是项目时序约束优化阶段,采用蚁群算法(ACO)进行任务列表的优化求解,通过对信息素增量规则的改进、串联进度生成机制(SSGS)及资源冲突消解策略的使用,使蚁群算法的求解效率和质量得以提高;第2阶段是资源约束优化阶段,以第1阶段求得的优化任务列表为输入,逐项对人力资源约束进行核查与调整,最终生成项目调度的优化方案.数值实验表明,考虑胜任力差异的数学优化模型更符合研发项目群管理实践,同时两阶段算法在求解质量方面具有良好性能.     

Low-Power Design for Real-Time Systems

Real-time Systems often are located in the special environments where the power consumption is a big concern. Upon presence of timing constraints, the low power design on the real-time systems has significant impact on the performance as well as the schedulability of the systems. The system developers are facing the challenges for reducing the power consumption and meeting the timing constraints in the real-time systems.This paper represents one of few attempts to address the issue of the low power design on real-time systems. We present two power reduction methods: one is at the software compilation level and the other at the operating system level. Given a real-time program, an inter-instruction power reduction technique is proposed to transform the program to another one with lower power consumption. In addition, a scheduling algorithm for real-time operating systems is proposed to reschedule real-time programs when the execution time of the programs is changed. Therefore, the proposed scheduling algorithm works together with the proposed power reduction technique to make sure all programs meet their deadlines and to improve the system schedulability. We also evaluate the performance of the proposed inter-instruction reduction method by comparing it with the cold scheduling algorithm and show that the proposed method outperforms the cold scheduling algorithm and reduces more energy power.     

Efficient Algorithms for Interface Timing Verification

This paper presents algorithms for computing separations between events that are constrained to obey prespecified relationships in their relative time of occurrence. The algorithms are useful for interface timing verification, where event separations are checked against timing requirements. The first algorithm computes separations when only linear and max constraints exist. The algorithm must converge to correct maximum separation values in a finite number of steps, or report an inconsistence of the constraints, irrespective of the existence of infinite constraint bounds or infinite event separations. It is conjectured to run in time, where V is the number of events, and E is the number of relationships between them. The other algorithms extend the first, and compute event separations in the NP-complete version of the problem where min constraints exist. Experiments demonstrate the algorithms are efficient in practice.     

主动纠错式半监督聚类社区发现算法

经典的无监督聚类算法快速、简单且可以直接对大规模数据集进行划分,但是由于网络结构较为复杂,划分的准确度并不高。为此,提出一种基于主动学习的纠错式半监督社区发现算法ESCD（error correction semi-supervised community detection algorithm）,将传统的K-means算法进行分步计算,并且在聚类的过程中加入成对约束。根据先验信息保留正确的划分,纠正错误的划分来改变网络的连接关系,使网络具有更明显的块结构,当节点与聚类中心的距离不再变化时划分结束。实验结果表明,与现有的社区发现算法相比,ESCD算法具有更高的精度,且所需的监督信息远远小于其他半监督算法。     

面向多维修中心的资源受限任务调度问题研究

装备维修保障对推进作战顺利进行具有重要作用,合理高效的维修任务调度是维修保障的主要内容。首先讨论了资源受限伴随维修保障任务调度下的资源分类、优先级评估指标、维修调度模型、动态调度算法;其次分析了装备维修工序调度的流程;然后介绍了常见调度问题的目标函数、约束条件、求解算法;最后总结了资源受限任务调度存在的开放性问题和未来的发展方向。     

基于距离不等式的K-medoids聚类算法

本文研究加速K-medoids聚类算法,首先以PAM（Partitioning Around Medoids）、TPAM（Triangular Inequality Elimination Criteria PAM）算法为基础,给出两个加速引理,并基于中心点之间距离不等式提出两个新加速定理.同时,以O（n+K²）额外内存空间开销辅助引理、定理的结合而提出加速SPAM（Speed Up PAM）聚类算法,使得K-medoids聚类算法复杂度由O（K（n-K）²）降低至O（（n-K）²）.在实际及人工模拟数据集上的实验结果表明,相对PAM、TPAM、FKMEDOIDS（Fast K-medoids）等参考算法均有改进,运行时间比PAM至少提升0.828倍.