A Process Algebraic Framework for Modeling Resource Demand and Supply

Abstract

As real-time embedded systems become more complex, resource partitioning is increasingly used to guarantee real-time performance. Recently, several compositional frameworks of resource partitioning have been proposed using real-time scheduling theory with various notions of real-time tasks running under restricted resource supply environments. However, these real-time scheduling-based approaches are limited in their expressiveness in that, although capable of describing resource-demand tasks, they are unable to model resource supply. This paper describes a process algebraic framework for reasoning about resource demand and supply inspired by the timed process algebra ACSR. In ACSR, real-time tasks are specified by enunciating their consumption needs for resources. To also accommodate resource-supply processes we define PADS where, given a resource CPU, the complimented resource \(\overline{CPU}\) denotes for availability of CPU for the corresponding demand process. Using PADS, we define a supply-demand relation where a pair (S, T) belongs to the relation if the demand process T can be scheduled under supply S. We develop a theory of compositional schedulability analysis as well as a technique for synthesizing an optimal supply process for a set of tasks. We illustrate our technique via a number of examples.