Fixed-priority scheduling of real-time systems using utilization bounds

We have developed a new technique for determining at design time, the utilization bound for a specific set df hard real-time periodic tasks with known periods, when scheduled by any arbitrary fixed priority algorithm. The technique does not depend on precise knowledge of task computation times and does not require that task deadlines coincide with the arrival of the next request of the task. In this paper, we describe the technique and discuss how it can be applied to facilitate an engineering approach to the problem of task scheduling in hard real-time systems.