Design and Performance Evaluation of Configurable Component Middleware for End-to-End Adaptation of Distributed Real-Time Embedded Systems

Abstract

Standards-based quality of service (QoS)-enabled component middleware is increasingly being used as a platform for developing distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems that execute in open environments where operational conditions, input workload, and resource availability cannot be characterized accurately a priori. Although QoS-enabled component middleware offers many desirable features, until recently it lacked the ability to efficiently allocate resources and configure platform-specific QoS settings based on utilization of system resources and application QoS. Moreover, it has also lacked the ability to monitor and enforce application QoS requirements. This paper presents two contributions to research on adaptive resource management for component-based DRE systems. First, we describe the structure and functionality of the Resource Allocation and Control Engine (RACE), which is an open-source adaptive resource management framework built atop standards-based QoS-enabled component middleware. Second, we demonstrate the effectiveness of RACE in the context of a representative DRE system: NASA's Magnetospheric Multi-scale Mission system.