Response time analysis of multiframe mixed-criticality systems with arbitrary deadlines

• Published in: Real-time systems 2021-04, Vol.57 (1-2), p.141-189
• Main Authors: Hussain, Ishfaq, Awan, Muhammad Ali, Souto, Pedro F., Bletsas, Konstantinos, Akesson, Benny, Tovar, Eduardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive systems; Codec; Communications Engineering; Computer Science; Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks; Constraints; Control; Deadlines; Mechatronics; Networks; Performance and Reliability; Pessimism; Response time; Robotics; Scheduling; Special Purpose and Application-Based Systems; Task scheduling; Video compression; Video data
• ISSN: 0922-6443; 1573-1383
• DOI: 10.1007/s11241-020-09357-w

The well-known model of Vestal aims to avoid excessive pessimism in the quantification of the processing requirements of mixed-criticality systems, while still guaranteeing the timeliness of higher-criticality functions. This can bring important savings in system costs, and indirectly help meet size, weight and power constraints. This efficiency is promoted via the use of multiple worst-case execution time (WCET) estimates for the same task, with each such estimate characterized by a confidence associated with a different criticality level. However, even this approach can be very pessimistic when the WCET of successive instances of the same task can vary greatly according to a known pattern, as in MP3 and MPEG codecs or the processing of ADVB video streams. In this paper, we present a schedulability analysis for the new multiframe mixed-criticality model, which allows tasks to have multiple, periodically repeating, WCETs in the same mode of operation. Our work extends both the analysis techniques for Static Mixed-Criticality scheduling (SMC) and Adaptive Mixed-Criticality scheduling (AMC), on one hand, and the schedulability analysis for multiframe task systems on the other. A constrained-deadline model is initially targeted, and then extended to the more general, but also more complex, arbitrary-deadline scenario. The corresponding optimal priority assignment for our schedulability analysis is also identified. Our proposed worst-case response time (WCRT) analysis for multiframe mixed-criticality systems is considerably less pessimistic than applying the static and adaptive mixed-criticality scheduling tests oblivious to the WCET variation patterns. Experimental evaluation with synthetic task sets demonstrates up to 20% and 31.4% higher scheduling success ratio (in absolute terms) for constrained-deadline analyses and arbitrary-deadline analyses, respectively, when compared to the best of their corresponding frame-oblivious tests.