Introductory Statement

Real-time computing has become an important subdiscipline of Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Many interesting applications require real-time computing such as avionics, air traffic control, robotics, factory automation, nuclear power plants, process control, automated highways, intensive care monitoring, space travel, financial transactions, telecommunications, mobile computing, smart spaces like rooms or buildings, and multimedia. One major study has indicated that by the year 2000, 50% of all software development will be for real-time embedded systems. The course presents the underlying theory, concepts, and practice for such systems. The goals of the course include: introducing the unique problems that arise when time constraints are imposed on systems, identifying basic theory and the boundary between what is known today and what is still research, stressing a systems integration viewpoint in the sense of showing how everything fits together rather than presenting a collection of isolated solutions, and addressing multiprocessing and distributed systems. One main value to this course is how it brings together material that students have had in other courses such as architecture, operating systems, programming languages and networking. Students are also introduced to multiprocessing.

With the explosion of the Internet capabilities and the ability to transmit real-time audio and video streams, real-time computing is now ubiquitous. This course presents some of the basic results from what might be called the classical technology of real-time computing and presents these results in the context of new applications of this technology in ubiquitous/pervasive computer systems.