Multicore-based hardware platforms are increasingly being used to implement computationally intensive safety-critical systems such as autonomous vehicles, robots, and smart medical devices. These systems often have components that require real-time certification. To this end, a “separation of concerns” strategy is applied: first, worst-case execution times (WCETs) for executable code are determined through a process called timing analysis; then, schedulability analysis is applied to validate timing constraints (usually deadlines) assuming valid WCET values are provided.
Unfortunately, there is consensus today that, on multicore platforms, the only viable approach for timing analysis is via measurement-based methods, which are fundamentally incapable of producing correct WCETs with certainty. This fact creates a disconnect with schedulability analysis that calls into question whether real-time safety can even be certified on multicore platforms. The goal of this project is to bridge this disconnect by using budget enforcement to ensure that WCET assumptions are respected at runtime. WCETs are ordinarily viewed as being task (program) parameters, but they are also needed for critical sections when real-time synchronization protocols are used, and for subsystems of a larger system when tasks are aggregated in some way, e.g., as nodes in a processing graph or as part of some system component. The need for budget enforcement at so many levels creates theoretical and practical problems that have never been addressed before.
This project will address the problems noted above through multifaceted research that focuses on (i) identifying those budgets that must be policed to enable real-time safety certification in multicore systems, (ii) examining the implications for scheduling and timing analysis that arise from making multi-level budget enforcement a first-class concern, and (iii) investigating implementation concerns for efficient and predictable multi-level budget enforcement. New research results will be produced regarding the orchestration of budget enforcement across (at least) four levels: components, processing graphs, tasks, and shared resources
The push to realize ever more sophisticated embedded systems, such as autonomous vehicles and aircraft, is being driven by the capabilities of multicore platforms. However, the disconnect that exists between timing analysis and scheduability analysis points to a looming certification crisis. If this crisis is not addressed, then it will not be possible to field systems that can be confidently viewed as safe. This project is directed at bridging this disconnect.
J. Bakita and J. Anderson, " Hardware Compute Partitioning on NVIDIA GPUs for Composable Systems", Proceedings of the 37th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems , July 2024, to appear. PDF .
Z. Tong, S. Ali, and J. Anderson, " Asymptotically Optimal Multiprocessor Real-Time Locking for non-JLFP Scheduling", Proceedings of the 31st IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium , pp. 1-12, 2025. Winner, outstanding paper award. PDF .
S. Ahmed, D. Massey, and J Anderson, " Scheduling Processing Graphs of Gang Tasks on Heterogeneous Platforms", Proceedings of the 31st IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium , pp. 362–374, May 2025. PDF .
S. Ali, A. Angelopoulos, D. Massey, S. Haddix, A. Georgiev, J. Goh, R. Wagle, P. Sarathy, J. Anderson, and R. Alterovitz, " On the Necessity of Real-Time Principles in GPU-Driven Autonomous Robots", Proceedings of the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) , pp. 8086–8092, May 2025. PDF .
S. Ali, J. Goh, J. Bakita, S. Chakraborty, and J. Anderson, " Concurrent FFT Execution on GPUs in Real-Time", Proceedings of the 33rd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-Based Processing , pp. 154-161 March 2025 PDF .
J. Goh and J. Anderson, " Towards Principled Budget Enforcement in Real-Time Systems", Proceedings of the 45th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium , pp. 256-266, December 2024. PDF .
D. Massey, S. Ahmed, and J. Anderson, " On the Feasibility of Sporadic Tasks with Restricted Parallelism on Heterogeneous Multiprocessors", Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Real-Time Networks and Systems , pp. 105-116, November 2024. Winner, outstanding paper award. PDF .
Z. Tong and J. Anderson, " Budgeting Processing Graphs Under Restricted Parallelism", Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems , pp. 172–181, October 2024. PDF .
S. Ahmed and J. Anderson, " Open Problem Resolved: The `Two’ in Existing Multiprocessor PI-Blocking Bounds is Fundamental", Proceedings of the 36th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems , pp. 11:1–11:21, July 2024. PDF .
S. Ali, Z. Tong, J. Goh, and J. Anderson, " Predictable GPU Sharing in Component-Based Real-Time Systems", Proceedings of the 36th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems , pp. 15:1–15:22, July 2024. PDF .
S. Liu, R. Wagle, J. Anderson, M. Yang, C. Zhang, and Y. Li, " Autonomy Today: Many Delay-Prone Black Boxes", Proceedings of the 36th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems , pp. 12:1–12:27, July 2024. PDF .
J. Bakita and J. Anderson, " Demystifying NVIDIA GPU Internals to Enable Reliable GPU Management", Proceedings of the 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, pp. 294-305, May 2024. PDF .
R. Wagle, Z. Tong, R. Sites, and J. Anderson, " Want Predictable GPU Execution? Beware SMIs!", Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems, pp. 2100-2109, December 2023. PDF .
Z. Tong, S. Ahmed, and J. Anderson, " Holistically Budgeting Processing Graphs", Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, pp. 27–39, December 2023. PDF .
S. Ahmed and J. Anderson, " Soft Real-Time Gang Scheduling", Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, pp. 331-343, December 2023. PDF .
S. Ahmed and J. Anderson, " Optimal Multiprocessor Locking Protocols under FIFO Scheduling", Proceedings of the 35th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems, pp. 16.1-16.21, July 2023. PDF .
J. Bakita and J. Anderson, " Hardware Compute Partitioning on NVIDIA GPUs", Proceedings of the 29th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, pp. 54–66, May 2023. PDF . Artifact evaluation instructions are here . Winner, outstanding paper award.
Other papers that acknowledge this grant can be found on the PI's Publications Page .
Last modified 31 May 2025