Section: Research Program

Real-Time Multicore Programming

Programming real-time systems (i.e., systems whose correct behavior depends on meeting timing constraints) requires appropriate languages (as exemplified by the family of synchronous languages  [33]), but also the support of efficient scheduling policies, execution time and schedulability analyses to guarantee real-time constraints (e.g., deadlines) while making the most effective use of available (processing, memory, or networking) resources. Schedulability analysis involves analyzing the worst-case behavior of real-time tasks under a given scheduling algorithm and is crucial to guarantee that time constraints are met in any possible execution of the system. Reactive programming and real-time scheduling and schedulability for multiprocessor systems are old subjects, but they are nowhere as mature as their uniprocessor counterparts, and still feature a number of open research questions  [29], [41], in particular in relation with mixed criticality systems. The main goal in this theme is to address several of these open questions.

We intend to focus on two issues: multicriteria scheduling on multiprocessors, and schedulability analysis for real-time multiprocessor systems. Beyond real-time aspects, multiprocessor environments, and multicore ones in particular, are subject to several constraints in conjunction, typically involving real-time, reliability and energy-efficiency constraints, making the scheduling problem more complex for both the offline and the online cases. Schedulability analysis for multiprocessor systems, in particular for systems with mixed criticality tasks, is still very much an open research area.

Distributed reactive programming is rightly singled out as a major open issue in the recent, but heavily biased (it essentially ignores recent research in synchronous and dataflow programming), survey by Bainomugisha et al.  [29]. For our part, we intend to focus on two questions: devising synchronous programming languages for distributed systems and precision-timed architectures, and devising dataflow languages for multiprocessors supporting dynamicity and parametricity while enjoying effective analyses for meeting real-time, resource and energy constraints in conjunction.