2nd course in the Real-time Embedded Systems Specialization.

Instructor: Sam Siewert, Ph.D., Associate Professor Adjunct 

This course provides an in-depth and full mathematical derivation and review of models for scheduling policies and feasibility determination by hand and with rate monotonic tools along with comparison to actual performance for real-time scheduled threads running on a native Linux system.

Prior knowledge needed: ECEA 5315 Concept and Practices, C Programming and Compilation Pipeline, Computer System Architecture, Operating Systems Concepts, Linux based Systems, C Programming and Compilation Pipeline, Computer System Architecture, Operating Systems Concepts, Linux based Systems

Learning Outcomes

  • Rate monotonic theory (complete math models)

  • Differences between fixed priority rate monotonic policy and dynamic priority earliest deadline first and least laxity policies

  • Scheduling theory and practice writing code for multi-frequency executives, priority preemptive RTOS services, and real-time threaded services on traditional operating systems (Linux)

  • Building a simple Linux multi-service system using POSIX real-time extensions on Raspberry Pi 3b using sequencing and methods to log and verify agreement between theory and practice

  • Timing diagram generation and analysis using Cheddar

Syllabus

Duration: 19 hours

At the end of this module, you will be able to analyze the mathematics involved in Rate Monotonic Least Upper Bound Condition along with its challenges and alternatives to it. An extension to RM scheduling policy i.e. Deadline Monotonic Scheduling Policy along with implementation of completion test for determining exact feasibility for Rate Monotonic Scheduling policy is also in scope of this module.

Working on Programming assignments will give system level implementation of real time services and determining the best scheduling policies for meeting the deadlines for the designed real-time systems along with their trade offs. 

Duration: 20 hours

At the end of this module learners will be able to describe the design pattern for real-time services, describe implementation challenges such as unbounded blocking and describe normal operation - request for service synchronization between an ISR and each thread or task, initialization, keep-alive posting, error handling, and termination.

Duration: 10 hours

At the end of this Module learners will know when to use dynamic priority policies, advantages of them for soft real-time, disadvantages for error detection and recovery, challenges of feasibility determination and efficiency compared to fixed priority.

Duration: 13 hours

At the end of this Module learners will be able to describe issues with resources used beyond CPU (memory, I/O, and storage) and how to avoid problems or recover from them.

Duration: 2 hours

Final exam for this course.

To learn about ProctorU's exam proctoring, system test links, and privacy policy, visit www.colorado.edu/ecee/online-masters/current-students/proctoru.

Grading

Assignment
Percentage of Grade

Quizzes

10%

Programming Assignments & Peer reviews

60%

Final Exam

30%

Letter Grade Rubric 

Letter Grade 
Minimum Percentage

A

95%
A- 90%
B+ 87%

B

84%
B- 80%
C+ 77%

C

74%
C- 70%
D+ 67%

D

60%

F

0%