Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives At the completion of the subject students should be able to design and implement software in simple real-time systems; undertake formal specification of real-time systems; and construct queuing models of simple (M/G/1) real-time systems.
Synopsis This subject addresses the important issue of software structures and design methodologies associated with real-time systems, ie systems that must react in a timely fashion to external stimuli, the sequencing of which is outside the control of the system. The subject is designed to provide an understanding of real-time applications, an understanding of the principles, design and specification of real-time systems, an introduction to modelling real-time applications, and a set of design, formal specification, modelling and implementation tools and techniques appropriate to real-time systems. The syllabus covers applications of real-time systems, problems of implementation, principles of real-time programming, queueing theory, task and process scheduling, time constraints, synchronisation, interprocess communications, design methodologies, reliability and fault tolerance, distributed systems, and performance measurement of real-time systems.
Assessment Examination (2 hours, closed book): 50% + Three programming assignments (2x10% and 1x25%): 45% + One written assignment: 5%