Concepedia

Real-Time Mach: Towards a Predictable Real-Time System.

Hideyuki Tokuda, Tatsuo Nakajima, Prithvi Rao

1990 · 187 citations · 15 references

TL;DR

Distributed real‑time systems are critical for domains such as aircraft control, communications, military command, factory automation, and robotics, yet meeting their strict timing requirements often relies on ad hoc tuning. The paper aims to develop Real‑Time Mach, a real‑time version of the Mach kernel that offers a predictable and reliable distributed real‑time computing environment, and to describe its real‑time thread model, synchronization, and ITDS scheduler. The authors implement Real‑Time Mach by introducing a real‑time thread model, real‑time synchronization primitives, an ITDS scheduler, and a real‑time toolset, while addressing implementation issues and reporting the system’s current status.

Abstract

Distributed real-time systems play a very important role in our modern society. They are used in aircraft control, communication systems, military command and control systems, factory automation, and robotics. However, satisfying the rigid timing requirements of various real-time activities in distributed real-time systems often requires ad hoc methods to tune the system’s runtime behavior The objective of Real-Time Mach is to develop a real-time version of the Mach kernel which provides users with a predictable and reliable distributed real-time computing environment. In this paper, we describe a real-time thread model, real-time synchronization, and the ITDS scheduler in RealTime Mach. We also discuss the implementation issues, a real-time toolset, and the current status of the system.