Supporting software synthesis of communication infrastructures for embedded real-time applications

Although there are many commercial real-time micro-kernel available on the market today, the common prejudices against their use for implementing control algorithms are still justified. Some of them are too complex and overhead-prone while others are tiny and efficient but don't provide all those services that are actually required by real-time applications. This is especially true regarding communication support for distributed and embedded control systems. This paper focuses on a new design concept for real-time communication system (RCOS) platforms matching the quality and functional needs of a given distributed and embedded application. The approach is based on a library operating system (DREAMS *) which allows for extremely fine-grained customizations to avoid system-level overhead. We will outline the architecture of DREAMS, show how customization is applied for interprocessor communication and present first results that demonstrate the impact of customization on system overhead. Copyright (C) 1998 IFAC.