There has been increasing interest in the real-time community for Quality of Service (QoS) based systems, such as multimedia and telecommunication systems. In this paper, we deal with scheduling components integrating new QoS functionalities under Linux/RTAI (Real-Time Application Interface) [Rta04]. (more…)

There is a strong tendency towards using modern Personal Computers for various tasks they are not designed for. This also includes audio and video processing. Audio and Video data is real-time data. It needs to be dispatched within predefined and fixed time windows to avoid perceivable lags and dropouts. (more…)

A deterministic response time is the most important and necessary feature in Hard Real-Time Systems. This is the main reason why some years ago it was unthinkable to implement Hard Real-Time Systems with the Java language, an object-oriented, interpreted language, mainly because Java uses garbage collection to implicitly deallocate dynamic memory; This is widely known as“the garbage collection problem''… (more…)

RTLinux does not support direct access to any kind of permanent massive storage system, and in particular IDE hard disks. When a RTLinux thread has to store data on the hard disk, it has to use the Linux services. The usual way of doing the transfer is by means of RTFifos: a rtl-task sends the data to Linux through an RTfifo, and then, a Linux process writes this data on the hard disk. (more…)

This paper describes a fixed-point arithmetic implementation of linear time-invariant digital filters in the C programming language, targeted for the use in real-time applications. FIR and IIR filters are presented in different configurations and representations, such as direct and transposed forms, as well as wave, state-space and normal forms. (more…)

Talk abstract: IBM researchers are successfully running Linux and X11 on a unique wrist watch, demonstrating the viability of Linux across all platforms — from large supercomputer clusters to the smallest intelligent devices. In this keynote presentation, Alex Morrow discussed IBM's far-reaching Linux activities and talked in detail about (and demonstrated on videotape) the incredible IBM Linux… (more…)

Scilab/Scicos is an open source project developed at the INRIA (Insitut National de Recherce on Informatique et on Automatique) in France which can be used to successfully replace other commercial and expensive software in solving mathematical and control problems. This software integrates a code generator for Scicos which has been modified and completed to automatically generate a code for the RTAI-Lab… (more…)

Talk abstract: Debian GNU/Linux is a natural choice as the basis for embedded Linux, due to its open development process, reliability and security, powerful package manager, and wide range of supported architectures. The Embedded Debian Project intends to create a Debian-based Embedded Linux that is scalable, supports a wide range of platforms, integrates embedded Linux related software from a… (more…)

Real Time applications involve time-critical tasks, which are to be run in a high precision scheduling environment always meeting the timing constraints. Applications which run on RT Linux uses a hard real-time kernel for tasks which needs real-time processing and the Linux OS for other non real-time tasks. (more…)

Talk abstract: Development of embedded systems is moving away from single-task / single-user applications running on specialized target platforms, towards a reduced general purpose OS running on PC-like hardware. This move is well represented by Linux based projects for embedded platforms and specialized minimum distributions. (more…)

Applications that require a combination of high-performance computing capabilities and real-time behavior, although pervasive (simulation, medicine, training, multimedia communications), often rely on specific hardware and software components that make them high performance but expensive, and quite difficult to develop, validate and moreover upgrade. (more…)

Talk abstract: The talk will explore alternative approaches to implementing graphical and windowing environments in Linux-based systems, and will focus in detail on how X Window System technology can be a viable solution. Topics will include advantages of using the X Window System, the history of embedded X, desktop and embedded X size requirements, distinctions between client and server… (more…)

Runtime reconfigurable embedded systems target an architecture consisting of a reconfigurable system-on-chip (RCSoC), which has hardcore or softcore general-purpose processor (GPP) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The architecture provides common execution semantics for software and hardware tasks. (more…)

Good Fork, Bad Fork — Examining the Limits of Open Source S/W in the Embedded Market
Talk abstract: Some have expressed concern about the potential for Linux forking (fragmentation). In his presentation, Mr. Bird asserted that the Open Source developer community cannot fulfill all of the Embedded Market's needs, because “network effects” which drive Open Source… (more…)

In focusing the efficacy of reconfigurable computing, one of the important dimensions is the partitioning of the Field Programmable Gate Arrays [FPGAs]. As the amount of reconfigurable resources in a single-chip FPGA is increased tremendously, it allows the change of hardware tasks at run-time. (more…)