research-article

Time Measurement and Control Blocks for Bare-Metal C++ Applications

Authors:

Friederike Bruns,

Philipp Ittershagen,

Kim GrüttnerAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), Volume 20, Issue 4

Article No.: 34, Pages 1 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/3434401

Published: 13 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Precisely timed execution of resource constrained bare-metal applications is difficult, because the embedded software developer usually has to implement and check the timeliness of the executed application through manual interaction with timers or counters. In the scope of this work, we propose a combined timing specification and concept for time annotation and control blocks in C++. Our proposed blocks can be used to measure and profile software block execution time. Furthermore, it can be used to control and enforce the software time behavior at runtime. After the application of these time blocks, a trace-based verification against the block-based timing specification can be performed to obtain evidence on the correct implementation and usage of the time blocks on the target platform. We have implemented our time block concept in a C++ library and tested it on an ARM Cortex A9 bare-metal platform. The combined usage of timing specification and our time block library has been successfully evaluated on a critical flight-control software for a multi-rotor system.

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Cited By

Nanjundaswamy NNitsche GPoppen FGrüttner K(2023)RISC-V Timing-Instructions for Open Time-Triggered Architectures2023 53rd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W)10.1109/DSN-W58399.2023.00058(211-214)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/DSN-W58399.2023.00058

Index Terms

Time Measurement and Control Blocks for Bare-Metal C++ Applications
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems
      1. Embedded software
  2. Real-time systems
2. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Empirical studies

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems

ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems Volume 20, Issue 4

Special Issue on FDL2019

July 2021

256 pages

ISSN:1539-9087

EISSN:1558-3465

DOI:10.1145/3458852

Editor:
Tulika Mitra
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2021 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: 13 May 2021

Accepted: 01 November 2020

Revised: 01 September 2020

Received: 01 February 2020

Published in TECS Volume 20, Issue 4

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Cited By

Nanjundaswamy NNitsche GPoppen FGrüttner K(2023)RISC-V Timing-Instructions for Open Time-Triggered Architectures2023 53rd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W)10.1109/DSN-W58399.2023.00058(211-214)Online publication date: Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/DSN-W58399.2023.00058

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