Scheduling distributable real-time threads in Tempus middleware

Problem statement: The heterogeneity in the choice of simulation platforms for real time scheduling stands behind the difficulty of developing a common simulation environment. A Discrete Event Simulation (DES) for a real time scheduling domain encompassing event definition, time advancing mechanism and scheduler has yet to be developed. Approach: The study focused on the proposed and the development of an event based discrete event simulator for the existing General Utility Scheduling (GUS) to facilitate the reuse of the algorithm under a common simulation environment. GUS is one of the existing TUF/UA scheduling algorithms that consider the Time/Utility Function (TUF) of the executed tasks in its scheduling decision. The scheduling optimality criteria are based on maximizing accrued utility accumulated from execution of all tasks in the system. These criteria are named as Utility Accrual (UA). The TUF/ UA scheduling algorithms are design for adaptive real time system environment. The developed GUS simulator has derived the set of parameter, events, performance metrics and other unique TUF/UA scheduling element according to a detailed analysis of the base model. Results: The Accrued Utility Ratio (AUR) is investigated and compared to the benchmark of the modeled domain. Successful deployment of the GUS simulator was proven by the generated results. Conclusion: Extensive performance analysis of GUS simulator can be deployed using the developed simulator with low computational overhead. Further enhancements were to extend the developed GUS simulator with detail performance metrics together with a fault tolerance mechanism to support a reliable real time application domain.

Behavioral analysis of real-time systems with interdependent tasks

In global supply chain, the scheduling problems of large products such as ships, airplanes, space shuttles, assembled constructions, and/or automobiles are complicated by nature. New scheduling systems are often developed in order to reduce inherent computational complexity. As a result, a problem can be decomposed into small sub-problems, problems that contain independently small scheduling systems integrating into the initial problem. As one of the authors experienced, DAS (Daewoo Shipbuilding Scheduling System) has adopted a two-layered hierarchical architecture. In the hierarchical architecture, individual scheduling systems composed of a high-level dock scheduler, DAS-ERECT and low-level assembly plant schedulers, DAS-PBS, DAS-3DS, DAS-NPS, and DAS-A7 try to search the best schedules under their own constraints. Moreover, the steep growth of communication technology and logistics enables it to introduce distributed multi-nation production plants by which different parts are produced by designated plants. Therefore vertical and lateral coordination among decomposed scheduling systems is necessary. No standard coordination mechanism of multiple scheduling systems exists, even though there are various scheduling systems existing in the area of scheduling research. Previous research regarding the coordination mechanism has mainly focused on external conversation without capacity model. Prior research has heavily focuses on agent-based coordination in the area of agent research. Yet, no scheduling domain has been developed. Previous research regarding the agent-based scheduling has paid its ample attention to internal coordination of scheduling process, a process that has not been efficient. In this study, we suggest a general framework for agent-based coordination of multiple scheduling systems in global supply chain. The purpose of this study was to design a standard coordination mechanism. To do so, we first define an individual scheduling agent responsible for their own plants and a meta-level coordination agent involved with each individual scheduling agent. We then suggest variables and values describing the individual scheduling agent and meta-level coordination agent. These variables and values are represented by Backus-Naur Form. Second, we suggest scheduling agent communication protocols for each scheduling agent topology classified into the system architectures, existence or nonexistence of coordinator, and directions of coordination. If there was a coordinating agent, an individual scheduling agent could communicate with another individual agent indirectly through the coordinator. On the other hand, if there was not any coordinating agent existing, an individual scheduling agent should communicate with another individual agent directly. To apply agent communication language specifically to the scheduling coordination domain, we had to additionally define an inner language, a language that suitably expresses scheduling coordination. A scheduling agent communication language is devised for the communication among agents independent of domain. We adopt three message layers which are ACL layer, scheduling coordination layer, and industry-specific layer. The ACL layer is a domain independent outer language layer. The scheduling coordination layer has terms necessary for scheduling coordination. The industry-specific layer expresses the industry specification. Third, in order to improve the efficiency of communication among scheduling agents and avoid possible infinite loops, we suggest a look-ahead load balancing model which supports to monitor participating agents and to analyze the status of the agents. To build the look-ahead load balancing model, the status of participating agents should be monitored. Most of all, the amount of sharing information should be considered. If complete information is collected, updating and maintenance cost of sharing information will be increasing although the frequency of communication will be decreasing. Therefore the level of detail and updating period of sharing information should be decided contingently. By means of this standard coordination mechanism, we can easily model coordination processes of multiple scheduling systems into supply chain. Finally, we apply this mechanism to shipbuilding domain and develop a prototype system which consists of a dock-scheduling agent, four assembly- plant-scheduling agents, and a meta-level coordination agent. A series of experiments using the real world data are used to empirically examine this mechanism. The results of this study show that the effect of agent-based platform on coordinated scheduling is evident in terms of the number of tardy jobs, tardiness, and makespan.

In many real-time systems, continuous operation can raise processor temperature, potentially leading to system failure, bodily harm to users, or a reduction in the functional lifetime of a system. Static power dominates the total power consumption, and is also directly proportional to the operating temperature. This reduces the effectiveness of frequency scaling and necessitates the use of sleep states. In this work, we explore the relationship between energy savings and system temperature in the context of fixed-priority energy-saving schedulers, which utilize a processor’s deep-sleep state to save energy. We derive insights from a well-known thermal model, and are able to identify proactive design choices which are independent of system constants and can be used to reduce processor temperature. Our observations indicate that, while energy savings are key to lower temperatures, not all energy-efficient solutions yield low temperatures. Based on these insights, we propose the SysSleep and ThermoSleep algorithms, which enable a thermally-effective sleep schedule. We also derive a lower bound on the optimal temperature achievable by energy-saving schedulers. Additionally, we discuss partitioning and task phasing techniques for multi-core processors, which require all cores to synchronously transition into deep sleep, as well as those which support independent deep-sleep transitions. We observe that, while energy optimization is straightforward in some cases, the dependence of temperature on partitioning and task phasing makes temperature minimization non-trivial. Evaluations show that compared to the existing purely energy-efficient design methodology, our proposed techniques yield lower temperatures along with significant energy savings.

We consider the problem of scheduling with renewable speed-up resources. Given m identical machines, n jobs and c different discrete resources, the task is to schedule each job non-preemptively onto one of the machines so as to minimize the makespan. In our problem, a job has its original processing time, which could be reduced by utilizing one of the resources. As resources are different, the amount of the time reduced for each job is different depending on the resource it uses. Once a resource is being used by one job, it can not be used simultaneously by any other job until this job is finished, hence the scheduler should take into account the job-to-machine assignment together with the resource-to-job assignment. We observe that, the classical unrelated machine scheduling problem is actually a special case of our problem when m=c, i.e., the number of resources equals the number of machines. Extending the techniques for the unrelated machine scheduling, we give a 2-approximation algorithm when both m and c are part of the input. We then consider two special cases for the problem, with m or c being a constant, and derive PTASes (Polynomial Time Approximation Schemes) respectively. We also establish the relationship between the two parameters m and c, through which we are able to transform the PTAS for the case when m is constant to the case when c is a constant. The relationship between the two parameters reveals the structure within the problem, and may be of independent interest.

The General Scheduling Problem (GSP) generalizes scheduling problems with sum of cost objectives such as weighted flow time and weighted tardiness. Given a set of jobs with processing times, release dates, and job dependent cost functions, we seek to find a minimum cost preemptive schedule on a single machine. The best known algorithm for this problem and also for weighted flow time/tardiness is an O(loglog P)-approximation (where P denotes the range of the job processing times), while the best lower bound shows only strong NP-hardness. When release dates are identical there is also a gap: the problem remains strongly NP-hard and the best known approximation algorithm has a ratio of e+\epsilon (running in quasi-polynomial time). We reduce the latter gap by giving a QPTAS if the numbers in the input are quasi-polynomially bounded, ruling out the existence of an APX-hardness proof unless NP\subseteq DTIME(2^polylog(n)). Our techniques are based on the QPTAS known for the UFP-Cover problem, a particular case of GSP where we must pick a subset of intervals (jobs) on the real line with associated heights and costs. If an interval is selected, its height will help cover a given demand on any point contained within the interval. We reduce our problem to a generalization of UFP-Cover and use a sophisticated divide-and-conquer procedure with interdependent non-symmetric subproblems. We also present a pseudo-polynomial time approximation scheme for two variants of UFP-Cover. For the case of agreeable intervals we give an algorithm based on a new dynamic programming approach which might be useful for other problems of this type. The second one is a resource augmentation setting where we are allowed to slightly enlarge each interval.

For solving the transmission-line maintenance scheduling optimization problem(TMSOP),the uncertainties of power system load,generator output,line failure rate and maintenance resource were analyzed.An optimization model based on stochastic expected value two-level programming(SEVTP) was established,taking the static safety risk of electrical system into consideration.This model synthetically evaluates the possibility and outcomes of uncertainty,plus the objective function quantifies the risk item in forms of static safety controlling cost.A hybrid intelligent optimization algorithm,combining Monte Carlo method,interior point method,particle swarm optimization(PSO) and tabu list,was presented to solve the Nash balance and Stackelberg-Nash balance of this model.The optimization outcome includes the line maintenance schedule and the arrangement for the maintenance resources,as well as the least-risk-operation style for the power system during the maintenance.Finally,the feasibility of this model and the solution was verified by an IEEE-RTS example.

Since the grid system is implemented on a network framework with heterogeneous remote resources, it is a hazardous environment. The possibility of failure occurrence on the grid resources are not negligible and should be considered. On the other hand, the reliability is a major criterion for the safety-critical and real time applications. This paper focuses on dependability aspects of grid scheduling strategies such as reliability and availability by using various forms of redundancy (e.g. hardware, software, and data). A hybrid method including fault masking and fault tolerance is used in this paper to improve the reliability of grid scheduling system. The proposed scheduling model integrates an active redundancy and backup majority voting together. After the detection of an error, multiple check-pointing as a recovery technique is invoked by the proposed scheduler. This method can be used at each level of scheduling based on a hierarchical and dynamic architecture. This scheduling model does not have a significant time overhead on other performance criteria such as waiting time, completion time and throughput. The proposed scheduling model also tries to reduce the resource cost in economic grids. Simulation results of proposed model in the presence of faults and resource failure show the improvement of reliability when compared with non-fault tolerance scheduler and other classic methods.

The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) is a general problem class of scheduling problems. It even contains the well-known job shop scheduling problem as a special case. In these problems, jobs demand different amounts from multiple resources at once. The goal is to minimize completion time while satisfying resource capacity constraints throughout the schedule. The RCPSP has several variations and generalizations, one of which is the multi-mode problem. Multiple operation modes are given for jobs, differing in resource usages and execution times. Another generalization is where resources have time-varying capacities instead of a constant limit. The S-graph framework was developed for batch process scheduling and used successfully in various applications. The advantages of this approach motivate research to extend its capabilities to more general problem classes and apply it in various specialized case studies. The authors have previously presented an extension of the S-graph framework for RCPSP and its multi-mode generalization. In this work, a further extension is proposed for handling time-varying capacities. The method relies on a model transformation technique and recent algorithmic developments of the framework.

Event-B model of a two-level hierarchical scheduling system with local resource sharing managed by time division multiplexing global scheduler and two alternative local schedulers refined by the nondeterministic queue-based scheduling policy. Developed to support a special issue of ABZ2018 in Science of Computer Programming. Track paper: Formalizing Hierarchical Scheduling for Refinement of Real-Time Systems. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2020.102390

Scheduling task graphs under hard (end-to-end) timing constraints is an extensively studied NP-hard problem of critical importance for predictable software mapping on Multiprocessor System-on-chip (MPSoC) platforms. In this work we focus on an off-line (design-time) version of this problem, where the target task graph is known before execution time. We address the issue of scheduling robustness, i.e. providing hard guarantees that the schedule will meet the end-to-end deadline in presence of bounded variations of task execution times expressed as min-max intervals known at design time. We present a robust scheduling algorithm that proactively inserts sequencing constraints when they are needed to ensure that execution will have no inserted idle times and will meet the deadline for any possible combination of task execution times within the specified intervals. The algorithm is complete, i.e. it will return a feasible graph augmentation if one exists. Moreover, we provide an optimization version of the algorithm that can compute the shortest deadline that can be met in a robust way.

We consider scheduling distributable real-time threads that are subject to dependencies (e.g., due to mutual exclusion constraints) in ad hoc networks, in the presence of node and link failures, message losses, and dynamic node joins and departures. We present a gossip-based distributed scheduling algorithm, called RTG-D. We prove that thread blocking times under RTG-D are probabilistically bounded, thereby probabilistically bounding thread time constraint satisfactions'. Our simulation results validate RTG-D's effectiveness.

Generally speaking, real-time system is considered to be able to influence the environment by receiving and processing data, and returning calculation results rapid enough, so as to control the environment. In computer science, real-time system describes the software and hardware system affected by time constraints, and its correctness relies on the logical correctness of the function and the time when the result is generated. According to the main characteristics of real-time operating system, such as time constraint, predictability and reliability, it puts forward higher requirements for the time accuracy and reliability of real-time operating system. This paper first introduces the real-time system from its main characteristics, related concepts and scheduling algorithm. Then five classical graph based task models of real-time system are introduced. Finally, this paper introduces the directed graph realtime task model from two aspects of definition and semantics. As an extension of realtime system task model, directed graph real-time task model is considered to be able to provide real-time systems with stronger expressive power and support the formal study of time constraint problems.

Traditional fixed-priority scheduling analysis for periodic/sporadic task sets is based on the assumption that all tasks are equally critical to the correct operation of the system. Therefore, every task has to be schedulable under the scheduling policy, and estimates of tasks' worst case execution times must be conservative in case a task runs longer than is usual. To address the significant under-utilization of a system's resources under normal operating conditions that can arise from these assumptions, several mixed-criticality scheduling approaches have been proposed. However, to date there has been no quantitative comparison of system schedulability or run-time overhead for the different approaches. In this dissertation, we present what is to our knowledge the first side-by-side implementation and evaluation of those approaches, for periodic and sporadic mixed-criticality tasks on uniprocessor or distributed systems, under a mixed-criticality scheduling model that is common to all these approaches. To make a fair evaluation of mixed-criticality scheduling, we also address some previously open issues and propose modifications to improve schedulability and correctness of particular approaches. To facilitate the development and evaluation of mixed-criticality applications, we have designed and developed a distributed real-time middleware, called MCFlow, for mixed-criticality end-to-end tasks running on multi-core platforms. The research presented in this dissertation provides the following contributions to the state of the art in real-time middleware: (1) an efficient component model through which dependent subtask graphs can be configured flexibly for execution within a single core, across cores of a common host, or spanning multiple hosts; (2) support for optimizations to inter-component communication to reduce data copying without sacrificing the ability to execute subtasks in parallel; (3) a strict separation of timing and functional concerns so that they can be configured independently; (4) an event dispatching architecture that uses lock free algorithms where possible to reduce memory contention, CPU context switching, and priority inversion; and (5) empirical evaluations of MCFlow itself and of different mixed criticality scheduling approaches both with a single host and end-to-end across multiple hosts. The results of our evaluation show that in terms of basic distributed real-time behavior MCFlow performs comparably to the state of the art TAO real-time object request broker when only one core is used and outperforms TAO when multiple cores are involved. We also identify and categorize different use cases under which different mixed criticality scheduling approaches are preferable.

An efficient assignment and scheduling of tasks of a multiprocessor program is one of the key elements in the effective utilization of multiprocessor systems. This problem being hard to solve exactly, is the reason that so many heuristic methods for finding a suboptimal schedule exist (Hou et al., 1994; Tsuchiya et al., 1997). This paper addresses the problem of multiprocessor scheduling represented as a directed acyclic task graph (DAG) without communication costs to fully connected multiprocessors. We proposed an algorithm, called PGA/SPF (Priority-based Genetic Algorithm/Shortest Processor First schedule) where a priority-based genetic algorithm is improved with the introduction of some knowledge about the scheduling problem, which is represented by the use of genetic operators as crossover and mutation operators. And, a new mapping method, shortest processor first schedule, assigns the selected task to a processor that can minimize a task execution time efficiently. The proposed algorithms generate similar or even better solutions than the previous algorithms in terms of the completion times of the resulting schedules.