A microkernel middleware architecture for distributed embedded real-time systems

• Main Authors: Brinkschulte, U., Bechina, A., Picioroaga, F., Schneider, E., Ungerer, T., Kreuzinger, J., Pfeffer, M.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer architecture; Control systems; Design engineering; Distributed computing; Embedded system; Microcontrollers; Middleware; Parallel processing; Real time systems; Systems engineering and theory
• ISSN: 1060-9857; 2575-8462
• DOI: 10.1109/RELDIS.2001.970772

Today more and more embedded real-time systems are implemented in a distributed way. These distributed embedded systems consist of a few controllers up to several hundreds. Distribution and parallelism in the design of embedded real-time systems increase the engineering challenges and require new methodological framework based on middleware. Our research work focuses on the development of a middleware that supports the design of heterogeneous distributed real-time systems and allows the use of small microcontrollers as computation nodes. Our study is aimed to a new approach that led to the development of OSA+-a scalable service-oriented real-time middleware architecture. This middleware has been used as the basic platform for different domain applications: (i) conception of an autonomous guided vehicle system based on multithreaded Java microcontrollers and (ii) development of a permanent monitoring distributed system for an oil drilling application. This paper presents the basic architecture of OSA+ and its implementation for the distributed real-time embedded systems design.