The Real-Time Systems Compiler: migrating event-triggered systems to time-triggered systems

SUMMARY

In this paper, we present a prototype of the Real-Time Systems Compiler (RTSC). The RTSC is a compiler-based tool that enables the migration from event-triggered to time-triggered real-time systems. This is achieved by replacing the real-time systems architecture of a given real-time system. The real-time systems architecture governs the structural properties of the white-box view of a real-time system: how are tasks attached to events and how are dependencies between different tasks implemented. The RTSC uses an abstraction called Atomic Basic Blocks (ABBs) to hide the real-time systems architecture and capture all relevant dependencies of an event-triggered system in a global ABB-graph. The RTSC automatically extracts that ABB-graph from an event-triggered real-time system given as source code, transforms that ABB-graph appropriately, and maps it to a statically computed schedule that could be executed by standard time-triggered real-time operating systems. Important temporal properties of the physical environment of the real-time system needed for that transformation are stored in a system model provided as additional input to the RTSC. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of our approach and the operation of our prototype by transforming an event-triggered control application into a time-triggered equivalent. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.