Design for Time-Predictability

A large part of safety-critical embedded systems has to satisfy hard real-time constraints. These need sound methods and tools to derive reliable run-time guarantees. The guaranteed run times should not only be reliable, but also precise. The achievable precision highly depends on characteristics of the target architecture and the implementation methods and system layers of the software. Trends in hardware and software design run contrary to predictability. This article describes threats to time-predictability of systems and proposes design principles that support time predictability. The ultimate goal is to design performant systems with sharp upper and lower bounds on execution times. 1 Acknowledgements The participants of the Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop on Design of Systems with Predictable Behavior have greatly contributed to this article. They were Christoph Berg, Uwe Brinkschulte, Jakob Engblom, Wolfgang A. Halang, Reinhold Heckmann, Vesa Hirvisalo, Jozef Hooman, Jan Madsen, ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: DAGSTUHL
• Authors: Lothar Thiele, Reinhard Wilhelm
• Keywords: DAGSTUHL 2004, DAGSTUHL 2007, Hard Real-time Constraints, Reliable Run-time Guarantees, Safety-critical Embedded Systems