Time-Triggered and Event-Triggered Real-Time Computing for Distributed Control Systems

Abstract

The paper introduces the basic concepts of time-triggered and event-triggered computing system. The correctness of real-time system depends on both, its proper behavior in the value domain and in the temporal domain. Any computer architecture for real-time systems must be concerned with the issue of temporal correctness, and the issue of value correctness. In a time-triggered system every task is periodically observed the state of its environment to determine whether a particular computational activity has to be performed. Event-triggered systems excel in flexibility, whereas time-triggered systems excel in temporal predictability. In the paper the distributed control system architecture addressed for time-triggered and event-triggered computing has been considered. We discuss the important requirements that must be satisfied by a distributed real-time computing system. The requirement of a distributed real-time computing system is to provide a consistent distributed computing base to all correct nodes in order that reliable distributed applications can be build with manageable effort.