Real-Time ProgrammingLaajuus (6 ECTS)

Objective

After completing the course the student understands the meaning and effects of the things in the list below when processes are run concurrently. In addition to that he/she knows how these things are implemented in the software according to the latest version of the standard IEEE Std 1003.1 (Posix). A special emphasis is put on the real time extensions of the standard like timers, real time signals, asynchronous i/o, semaphores, shared memory objects and so on.
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After completing the course the student masters in practice the technique needed to implement real-time and embedded software systems using operating system services via the operating system calls and library functions. He/she can develop systems that consist of multiple communicating processes or threads. The student can design and implement real-time applications that work in a reliable way so that all timing combinations of different asynchronous events that could cause problems are taken into consideration.

Content

Program development in Linux/Unix-environment
Basic operating system services for application programs
Processes and process interaction
Process synchronization (why and how?)
Signals
Pipes and FIFOs
Asynchronous and multiplexed i/o
Timing, timers and timeouts
Semaphores
Shared memory
Message queues
Threads and thread synchronization
Dynamically linked function libraries
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Sockets and streams
Device drivers
Different scheduling policies
Strict real-time requirements

Qualifications

UNIX Operating Systems
Programming (C)
Real-Time operating systems

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

-The student understands why and in what way the computer can do several task concurrently (“at the same time”).
-The student understands the properties and differences of processes and threads.
-The student is capable to write applications containing processes or threads.
-The student understands the possible problems caused by the context switch.

Assessment criteria, good (3)

-The student understands the problems caused by the race condition and can avoid them.
-The student can pass information between processes and threads and understands the possible synchronization problems that in this context.
-The student can avoid synchronization problems in one way or another.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

-The student can evaluate the suitability of different implementation techniques in different situations and choose one that is applicable in the specific situation.
-The student can implement applications using all techniques provided by the POSIX API.
-The student can do in-depth and wide ranging reasoning about the pitfalls in real-time applications and eliminate them in the implementation.