research-article

Firmness Analysis of Real-time Tasks

Authors:

Amir Behrouzian,

Hadi Alizadeh Ara,

Twan BastenAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), Volume 19, Issue 4

Article No.: 26, Pages 1 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/3398328

Published: 12 July 2020 Publication History

Abstract

(m,k)-firm real-time tasks require meeting the deadline of at least m jobs out of any k consecutive jobs. When compared to hard real-time tasks, (m,k)$-firm tasks open up the possibility of tighter resource-dimensioning in implementations. Firmness analysis verifies the satisfaction of (m,k)-firmness conditions. Scheduling policies under which a set of periodic tasks runs on a resource influence the number of deadline missed jobs. Therefore, the nature of the firmness analysis problem depends on scheduling policies. In this work, we present Firmness Analysis (FAn) methods for three common scheduling policies—synchronous and asynchronous Static Priority Preemptive (SPP) policies and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). We first introduce the Balloon and Rake problem—the problem of striking the maximum number of balloons in a balloon line with a rake. We show that the common core of firmness analysis problems can be abstracted as the Balloon and Rake problem. Next, we prove that the Finite Point method is a solution to the Balloon and Rake problem. We illustrate how existing FAn methods for the TDMA and asynchronous SPP policies can be adapted to use the same solution framework for the Balloon and Rake problem. Using the solution of the Balloon and Rake problem, we adapt the existing FAn methods to synchronous SPP scheduling policies. The scalability of the FAn methods is compared with that of a timed-automata approach, a brute-force approach, and a Mixed Integer Linear Programing method. The FAn methods scale substantially better to firmness analysis problem instances with a large k and a high number of tasks.

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Cited By

Vreman NPates RMaggio M(2022)WeaklyHard.jl: Scalable Analysis of Weakly-Hard Constraints2022 IEEE 28th Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS)10.1109/RTAS54340.2022.00026(228-240)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/RTAS54340.2022.00026
Haghi MYu SGoswami DGoossens KKoedam MNelson A(2022)State-based switching multi-rate controller for improving resource utilization on predictable and composable platformsMicroprocessors and Microsystems10.1016/j.micpro.2022.10451791(104517)Online publication date: Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2022.104517

Index Terms

Firmness Analysis of Real-time Tasks
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems
      1. Embedded software
  2. Real-time systems
    1. Real-time system architecture
    2. Real-time system specification

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems

ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems Volume 19, Issue 4

July 2020

196 pages

ISSN:1539-9087

EISSN:1558-3465

DOI:10.1145/3407675

Editor:
Tulika Mitra
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 12 July 2020

Online AM: 07 May 2020

Accepted: 01 May 2020

Revised: 01 January 2020

Received: 01 July 2018

Published in TECS Volume 19, Issue 4

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Cited By

Vreman NPates RMaggio M(2022)WeaklyHard.jl: Scalable Analysis of Weakly-Hard Constraints2022 IEEE 28th Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS)10.1109/RTAS54340.2022.00026(228-240)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/RTAS54340.2022.00026
Haghi MYu SGoswami DGoossens KKoedam MNelson A(2022)State-based switching multi-rate controller for improving resource utilization on predictable and composable platformsMicroprocessors and Microsystems10.1016/j.micpro.2022.10451791(104517)Online publication date: Jun-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2022.104517

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