D0003E: Real-time Systems


Spring 2012
Old web page from 2011

News

News and updates will always be announced here, with latest news on topmost row:
2012-02-10Reference to the TinyTimber kernel and documentation for lab 4 is updated.
2012-02-07Lecture 6 is updated.
2012-02-01The lab deadlines had dissapeared because of a mental race condition. It is now fixed.
2012-01-31Ändrad sal på torsdag också (luleå): A211.
2012-01-30Ändrad sal för imorgon! A117. (A109 har tydligen rämnat)
2012-01-18Pawel now have a bunch of programmers and butterfly-cards. If you like, you can pass by his office and pick one up. Form lab groups of two persons.
2012-01-18Extra material kompletternande föreläsning 2 finns nu.
2012-01-17En lab pass 1 torsdag 19/1 är inbokad för luleå (se schemat).
2012-01-16Lecture 1 slightly updated.
2012-01-16 Webbsidan i 2012 års version! Tjohoooo! :-) Nyheter/uppdateringar anonseras här.

Lab results:

Lab results

Schedule

Schedule for luleå
Schedule for skellefteå

Lectures


Updated for 2012?

Lecture 1:
Introduction to real-time systems and C slides (pdf)
Lecture 2:
Bit manipulation and hardware interfacing
slides (pdf) complementing slides (pdf)
Lecture 3:
Concurrent threads and mutual exclusion
slides (pdf)
Lecture 4:
The inner workings of a kernel
main slides (pdf), extra slides (pdf)
Lecture 5:
Events, interrupts & reactions
slides (pdf)
Lecture 6:
A model of reactive objects
slides (pdf)
Lecture 7:
Continuation of lecture 6

Lecture 8:
Clocks, timers, and periodic execution slides (pdf)
Lecture 9:
Deadlines and priorities slides (pdf), examples (pdf)
Lecture 10:
Scheduling and feasability slides (pdf)
Lecture 11:
Priority Inversion slides (pdf)
Lecture 12:
POSIX threads slides (pdf)
Lecture 13:
More inter-process communication
slides (pdf)
Lecture 14:
Real-Time Languages and synchronization
slides(pdf)
Lecture 15:
Repeatiotion and infamous realtime systems
slides (pdf), infamous systems (pdf)
Lecture 16:
Spare


Course aim

The aim of the course is to give competence in the development of real time systems in high level programming
languages, to discuss various models of synchronization and communication between concurrent processes in such
systems, and to study the characteristics of real time systems and their constructions.  The central concepts of the
course are concurrency - where programs are built using several concurrent threads of execution, reactivity  -
where external input is reacted to rather than requested, and real-time - where the timing behavior of a reactive
system is also of interest.

Course content

Concurrent Programming:
Reactive Programming:
Real Time Systems:
Course description from the course catalog

Course litterature

Alan Burns and Andy Wellings.
Real-Time Systems and Programming Languages.
Addison-Wesley, third edition, 2001.
ISBN: 0-201-72988-1.

Fouth edition is also perfectly usable.

Examiner & lecturer

Fredrik Bengtsson
E-mail: bson@ltu.se
Office: A3308
Phone: 49 24 31

Lab supervisor

Pawel Pietrzak
E-mail: pawel.pietrzak@ltu.se

Lab assignments

Rules (Must read!)


It is very easy to get started with the new equipment. Just connect the AVR JTAG ICE programmer to the computer by USB and to the butterfly board with the flat cable. Programming is performed in "AVR Studio". You will probably need to select programming device from the dialog found in the menu "debug->select platform and device". AVR studio might ask you if tou want to update the firmware of the jtag-programmer. Select that you do want to update the firmware if asked. Be sure to work in your home directory and not on the local computer.

Lab 1: C programming on bare metal
deadline 26/1
Lab 2: A lightweight multi-threading kernel
deadline 6/2
Lab 3: A threaded reformulation of lab 1
deadline 17/2
Lab 4: Dual pulse generators with a GUI
deadline 24/2
Lab 5: Traffic light control and simulation
deadline 9/3
Extra: Lab 6: Commanding a robot
You will get 5% of total exam points added to your result on the exam.
deadline before exam

Target platform documentation

The AVR Butterfly User's Guide describes the features of the platform (an evaluation kit) in overall terms.

The ATmega169 datasheet gives detailed information about the microcontroller that powers the Butterfly board.

The AVR instruction set explains the assembly language instructions that the ATmega169 uses.

The AVR065 application note provides details about the LCD driver on the Butterfly board.

The ATmega32 datasheet gives detailed information about the microcontroller that powers the miniature robots.

The AVR-P40-USB notes provide an overview of the development circuit board on the miniature robots.

Target platform resources

Lawicel, online supplier of AVR Butterfly cards.

Software Crew, another AVR Butterfly supplier.

Smiley Micros, USA-based supplier of AVR material.

WinAVR, open source C cross-compiler, libraries and download utilities (for Windows).

AVR Studio, optional AVR integrated development environment for Windows that installs on top of WinAVR.

Darwinports avr-gcc, open source C cross-compiler, libraries and download utilities (MacOS X)

AVR freaks, miscellaneous AVR-related info.

Links to related information

Johan Nordlander, Programming with the TinyTimber kernel

POSIX Threads Programming,
Livermore Computer Traning,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Ken Tindell & Hans Hansson,
Real-Time Systems by Fixed Priority Scheduling
Tech. report, Uppsala University, 1996.
Dave Marshall, Programming in C

Steve Holmes, C Programming

Steve Summit, C Programming Notes

Marshall Brain, How C Programming Works

Lee Tauck, C Tutorial

Mikael Sundström, Some C-tricks and Tips for Real-time Programming

Java and C Comparison Chart

The POSIX specification

POSIX in realtime

UnixWare 7 online manual pages

ANSI terminal control codes

Cygwin documentation

Ariane 5 Launch Failure

Apollo 11 Program Alarms

Mars Pathfinder Priority Inversion

Therac-25 Accidents