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Course Name: CSC9006 Real-Time Systems 即時系統 (Spring 2023)
Instructor: Chao Wang 王超
Teaching Assistant: Yi-Hsuan Tseng 曾翊瑄
Course Meetings: Thursdays 14:20-17:20 @ room S204, Gongguan Campus
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-4PM and Thursday 10AM-noon @ room 511, Applied Science Building, Gongguan Campus; or by appointment

配合教育部雙語大學政策，此課程為 EMI 全英文授課。

Contents

Course Syllabus

Real-time systems are computing systems engineered for the real world. From self-driving cars to Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems, a hallmark of real-time systems is that they must interact with the world outside of the computer in a timely, dependable, and efficient way. This semester we will study both theory and practice of real-time systems.

The target audience is fourth-year undergraduate students and graduate students.

Topics:

  1. Introduction to Real-Time Systems
  2. Real-Time Task Scheduling Algorithms
  3. Process Synchronization
  4. Real-Time Servers
  5. Real-Time Wireless Sensor Networks
  6. Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Edge Computing
  7. Mixed-Criticality Systems

Prerequisites:
Students must have learned (1) operating system concepts and (2) working knowledge in C, C++, and Linux.

Grading:

  • Hands-On Assignment 55%
  • Paper Critique 30%
  • Participation 15%

Course Schedule

Week Date Topic Reference
01 Feb 23 Course overview Textbook 1, Chapter 1; Textbook 2, Chapter 1
02 Mar 02 Fundamentals of real-time systems model Textbook 1, Chapter 2; Textbook 2, Chapter 10
03 Mar 09 Uniprocessor real-time scheduling (1) Paper 1
04 Mar 16 Uniprocessor real-time scheduling (2) Textbook 1, Chapter 4
05 Mar 23 Real-time servers (1) Textbook 1, Chapter 5
06 Mar 30 Real-time servers (2) Paper 3
07 Apr 06 Resource access protocols Textbook 1, Chapter 7; Paper 2
08 Apr 13 Recap for the first half of the semester All materials covered thus far
09 Apr 20 Real-time wireless sensor networks Paper 10
10 Apr 27 Fault-tolerant real-time edge computing (1) Papers 4 and 14; Textbook 2, Chapter 6
11 May 04 Fault-tolerant real-time edge computing (2) Paper 5
12 May 11 Real-time cyber-physical co-design (1) Paper 11
13 May 18 Real-time cyber-physical co-design (2) Paper 15
14 May 25 Mixed-criticality systems Papers 8 and 9
15 Jun 01 Real-time virtualization Papers 12 and 13
16 Jun 08 Course summary All materials covered thus far

References

Textbooks

  1. Giorgio C. Buttazzo. Hard Real-Time Computing Systems: Predictable Scheduling Algorithms and Applications Springer; 3rd ed. 2011 edition. eBook ISBN 978-1-4614-0676-1. (Publisher webpage)

  2. Hermann Kopetz and Wilfried Steiner. Real-Time Systems: Design Principles for Distributed Embedded Applications. Springer; 3nd ed. 2022 edition. eBook ISBN 978-3-031-11992-7. (Publisher webpage)

The above two textbooks can be accessed via campus network. Our school has campus authorization of the books.

Research papers

In one single semester, it is unrealistic to cover all major aspects of real-time systems. The following papers are subjectively picked by the instructor.

  1. C. L. Liu and James W. Layland, “Scheduling Algorithms for Multiprogramming in a Hard-Real-Time Environment”, Journal of ACM (JACM), Vol 20, No. 1, pp. 46–61, 1973.
  2. L. Sha, R. Rajkumar, J.P. Lehoczky, “Priority Inheritance Protocols: An Approach to Real-Time Synchronization”, IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), Vol 39, No. 9, pp. 1175–1185, 1990.
  3. Y. Zhang, C. Lu, C. Gill, P. Lardieri and G. Thaker, Middleware Support for Aperiodic Tasks in Distributed Real-Time Systems, IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS'07), April 2007. (Paper Critique 1)
  4. C. Wang, C. Gill, and C. Lu, FRAME: Fault Tolerant and Real-Time Messaging for Edge Computing, IEEE 39th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2019, pp. 976-985
  5. C. Wang, C. Gill, C. Lu. Adaptive Data Replication in Real-Time Reliable Edge Computing for Internet of Things. 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Internet-of-Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI), 2020.
  6. R. I. Davis .(2014). A Review of Fixed Priority and EDF Scheduling for Hard Real-Time Uniprocessor Systems. ACM SIGBED Review, 11(1), 8-19.
  7. R. I. Davis and A. Burns. (2011). A Survey of Hard Real-Time Scheduling for Multiprocessor Systems. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 43(4), 1-44.
  8. Vestal, Steve. “Preemptive scheduling of multi-criticality systems with varying degrees of execution time assurance.” 28th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2007). IEEE, 2007.
  9. Burns, Alan and Davis, Robert Ian (2022) Mixed Criticality Systems - A Review : (13th Edition, February 2022). , (97pp).
  10. Lu, C., Blum, B. M., Abdelzaher, T. F., Stankovic, J. A., & He, T. (2002, September). RAP: A real-time communication architecture for large-scale wireless sensor networks. In Proceedings. Eighth IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (pp. 55-66). IEEE. (Paper Critique 2)
  11. G. Hackmann; W. Guo; G. Yan; Z. Sun; C. Lu; and S. Dyke, “Cyber-Physical Codesign of Distributed Structural Health Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems ( Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Jan. 2014), pp. 63 - 72, DOI: 10.1109/TPDS.2013.30. (Paper Critique 3)
  12. S. Xi, J. Wilson, C. Lu and C.D. Gill, RT-Xen: Towards Real-time Hypervisor Scheduling in Xen, ACM International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT'11), October 2011.
  13. S. Xi, M. Xu, C. Lu, L. Phan, C. Gill, O. Sokolsky and I. Lee, Real-Time Multi-Core Virtual Machine Scheduling in Xen, ACM International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT'14), October 2014.
  14. Timothy H. Harrison, David L. Levine, and Douglas C. Schmidt. 1997. The design and performance of a real-time CORBA event service. SIGPLAN Not. 32, 10 (Oct. 1997), 184–200. https://doi.org/10.1145/263700.263734
  15. Y. Ma, D. Gunatilaka, B. Li, H. Gonzalez and C. Lu, Holistic Cyber-Physical Management for Dependable Wireless Control Systems, ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems, Special Issue on Dependability in Cyber Physical Systems and Applications, 3(1), Article No. 3, August 2018.

Accessibility

Students in need please contact the instructor.

Academic Integrity

Both homework assignments and literature critiques are designed to be done individually. Please reflect on the university’s motto: Sincerity, Integrity, Diligence, Simplicity. Anyone found to be cheating or helping someone else cheat will receive zero score for that assignment.