Real-time Systems Programming

Relations:

During a review of study plans, the course BE4B35PSR can be substituted for the course B4B35PSR.

The requirement for course B4B35PSR can be fulfilled by substitution with the course BE4B35PSR.

It is not possible to register for the course B4B35PSR if the student is concurrently registered for or has previously completed the course BE4B35PSR (mutually exclusive courses).

The requirement for course B4B35PSR can be fulfilled by substitution with the course R35PSR.

Course guarantor:

Michal Sojka

Lecturer:

Michal Sojka

Tutor:

Jaroslav Klapálek, Michal Sojka

Supervisor:

Department of Control Engineering

Synopsis:

The goal of this course is to provide students with basic knowledge about software development for real-time systems, for example in control and embedded applications. The main focus is on embedded systems equipped with a real-time operating system (RTOS). Lectures will cover real-time systems theory, which can be used to formally verify timing correctness such systems. Another set of lectures will introduce methods and techniques used for development of safety-critical systems, whose failure may have catastrophic consequences. During labs, students will first solve a few simple tasks to familiarize them with basic components of VxWorks RTOS and to benchmark the used OS and hardware (Xilinx Zynq). The obtained metrics represent the typical criteria for assessing the suitability of a given platform for the given application. After the simple tasks, students will solve complex task of time-critical motion control application which will require full utilization of RTOS features. All the tasks at the labs will be implemented in C (or C++) language.

Requirements:

Attendee must be capable of writing basic C programs and understand principles of multithreaded programming. It is an advantage (but not requirements) to finish B0B36APO and B4B35OSY before taking this course.

Syllabus of lectures:

1. Introduction to real-time systems, requirements, properties, applications

2. VxWorks operating system (OS)

3. POSIX 1003.1b - portable real-time OS interface

4. Reference model of real-time system

5. Off-line (clock-driven) scheduling

6. Fixed priority scheduling and analysis

7. Dynamic priority scheduling and analysis

8. Shared resource management

9. Combining real-time and non-real-time task, temporal isolation

10. Development of safety critical applications, functional safety standards, safety integriti level (SIL)

11. Techniques for increasing reliability of safety-critical software (redundancy, information coding, decomposition)

12. HAZOP study, software HAZOP, example

13. Multi-core systems and real-time, overview of RTOSes

Syllabus of tutorials:

1. VxWorks IDE basics: creating applications, VxWorks simlator, documentacion, debugging

2. VxWorks API: Mutexes, semaphores

3. VxWorks API: Real-Time processes and shared memory

4. Blocking on mutex, priority inheritance

5. Cyclic executive, worst-case execution time (WCET) measurement

6. Scheduler latency measurement

7. Ethernet communication latency measurement

8. Semestral work - distributed real-time motor controller (steer-by-wire) + visualisation with an in-application web server

Study Objective:

Study materials:

Buttazzo, Giorgio C, Hard Real-Time Computing Systems, Predictable Scheduling Algorithms and Applications, Springer, 2011

Burns A. and Wellings A.: Real-Time Systems and Programming Languages (Fourth Edition), Ada 2005, Real-Time Java and C/Real-Time POSIX, Addison Wesley Longmain, 2009

Redmill F., Morris Ch. et al, System Safety: HAZOP and Software HAZOP, Wiley, April 1999

Note:

Further information:

https://psr.pages.fel.cvut.cz/

Time-table for winter semester 2024/2025:

Time-table is not available yet

Time-table for summer semester 2024/2025:

Time-table is not available yet

The course is a part of the following study plans:

• Open Informatics - Internet of Things 2016 (compulsory course of the specialization)
• Open Informatics - Internet of Things 2018 (compulsory course of the branch)