Abstract
Periodic processes are major parts of many real-time embedded computer applications. The programming language Ada permits programming simple periodic processes, but it has some serious limitations; producing Ada programs with real-time performance comparable to those produced to date using traditional cyclic executives requires resorting to techniques that are specific to one machine or compiler. We present and evaluate the cyclic executive model for controlling periodic processes. The features and limitations of Ada for programming cyclic executive software are discussed and demonstrated, and some practical techniques for circumventing Ada limitations are described.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ada Run-time Environment Working Group. 1986.A Catalog of Interface Features and Options for the Ada Run-Time Environment. ACM SIGAda.
Baker, T.P. 1987. A Low-Level Tasking Package for Ada.Proc. SIGAda Internat. Conf. on the Ada Programming Language.
Baker, T.P., and K. Jeffay. 1987. Corset and Lace: Adapting Ada Run-Time Support to Real-Time Systems.Proc. IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, pp. 158–176.
Baker, T.P., and G. Scallon, 1986. An Architecture for Real-Time Software Systems.IEEE Software (May): 50–58.
CarlowG.D. 1984. Architecture of the Space Shuttle Primary Avionics Software System.Comm. ACM 27 (September): 926–936.
ClappR.M., L.Duchesneau, R.A.Volz, T.N.Mudge, and T.Schultze. 1986. Toward Real-Time Performance Benchamarks for Ada.Comm. ACM 29 (August): 760–778.
Dertouzos, M. 1984. Control Robotics: The Procedural Control of Physical Processes.Proc. IFIP Congress, pp. 807–813.
Donner, M.D. 1984. Control of Walking: Local Control and Real-Time Systems. CMU-CS-84-121. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
FaulkS.R., and D.L.Parnas. 1988. On Synchronization in Hard-Real-Time Systems.Comm. ACM 31 (March): 274–287.
GareyM., and D.Johnson. 1979.Computers and Intractability. Freeman, San Francisco.
Hood, P., and V. Grover. 1986.Designing Real-Time Systems in Ada. SofTech Report 1123-1. Submitted to HQ, U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command.
KochD.M. and T.P.Baker. 1987.Verification of Cyclic Schedules for Hard-Real-Time Systems. Technical Report, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32304.
LiuC.L. and J.W.Layland. 1973. Scheduling Algorithms for Multiprogramming in a Hard-Real-Time Environment.JACM 20 (January): 46–61.
MacLaren, L. 1980. Evolving Toward Ada in Real-Time Systems.Proc. ACM-SIGPLAN Symposium on Ada, SIGPLAN Notices, 15.11, pp. 146–155.
Military Standard Ada Programming Language. 1983. ANSI/MIL-STD-1815A. U.S. Department of Defense, Ada Joint Program Office.
Mok, A.K.-L. 1983. Fundamental Design Problems of Distributed Systems for the Hard-Real-Time-Environment. Ph.D. Dissertation, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA 02139.
Mok, A.K.-L., P. Amerasinghe, M. Chen, S. Sutanthavibul, and K. Tantisirivat. 1987. Synthesis of a Real-Time Message-Processing System with Data-Driven Timing Constraints.Proc. IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium. pp. 133–143.
Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language. 1980. Proposed standard document, U.S. Department of Defense.
Roubine, O. 1987. Oral remarks at International Workshop on Real-Time Ada Issues, Moreton-Hampstead, England.
Shaw, A. 1986. Software Clocks, Concurrent Programming, and Slice-Based Scheduling.Proc. IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, pp. 14–18.
Shaw, A. 1987. Reasoning about Time in Higher-Level Language Software. TR#87-08-05. Department of Computer Science, University of Washington. Accepted for publication inIEEE Trans. Software Engineering.
ZhaoW., K.Ramamritham, and J.Stankovic. 1987.Scheduling Tasks with Resource Requirements in Hard-Real-Time Systems.IEEE Trans. Software Engineering, SE-13 (May): 564–576.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Baker, T.P., Shaw, A. The cyclic executive model and Ada. Real-Time Syst 1, 7–25 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02341919
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02341919