Integrated time-driven scheduler for the ARTS kernel

The authors have developed a novel scheduling model, called Integrated Time-Driven Scheduler (ITDS), for the ARTS Kernel, which is a distributed real-time kernel currently under development. The ITDS model is based on the integration of hard real-time scheduling policies and a value-function-based time-driven scheduler. For the hard real-time tasks, the model can be used to predict whether the deadlines can be met or not at the system design stage. For the soft real-time tasks, the model schedules the tasks based on their value functions, which represent the semantic importance value as a function of time. A description is given of the ITDS model and the implementation of the ITDS scheduler, which is based on the policy/mechanism separation concept. They also discuss the development environment, including the real-time tool set and the experimental performance of the ITDS scheduler.