Interactive Real-Time Embedded Systems Education Infused with Applied Internet Telephony

The transition from traditional circuit-switched phone systems to modern packet-based Internet telephony networks demands tools to support Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) development. In this paper, we introduce the XinuPhone, an integrated hardware/software approach for educating users about VoIP technology on a real-time embedded platform. We propose modular course topics for design-oriented, hands-on laboratory exercises: filter design, timing, serial communications, interrupts and resource budgeting, network transmission, and system benchmarking. Our open-source software platform encourages development and testing of new CODECs alongside existing standards, unlike similar commercial solutions. Furthermore, the supporting hardware features inexpensive, readily available components designed specifically for educational and research users on a limited budget. The XinuPhone is especially good for experimenting with design trade-offs as well as interactions between real-time software and hardware components

FIFO Communication Models in Operating Systems for Reconfigurable Computing

Increasing demands upon embedded systems for higher level services like networking, user interfaces and file system management, are driving growth in fully-featured operating systems such as embedded Linux. In reconfigurable System-on-Chip (rSoC) design, a critical issue is efficient integration of custom hardware and software resources, where efficiency must be considered in terms of both design time and run time. Process networks communicating via FIFO queues are a powerful model for real time digital system design, especially for data streaming applications such as multimedia devices. FIFOs also form a central part of Unix and Linux Interprocess Communication (IPC) architectures, where they are more commonly known as pipes. In this paper, we expand on this observation and show how the combination of embedded Linux, reconfigurable System-on-Chip, and FIFO communication models provide a compelling platform for efficient design- and run-time implementation of complex, high performance embedded systems

DNET: A communications facility for distributed heterogeneous computing

This document describes DNET, a heterogeneous data communications networking facility. DNET allows programs operating on hosts on dissimilar networks to communicate with one another without concern for computer hardware, network protocol, or operating system differences. The overall DNET network is defined as the collection of host machines/networks on which the DNET software is operating. Each underlying network is considered a DNET 'domain'. Data communications service is provided between any two processes on any two hosts on any of the networks (domains) that may be reached via DNET. DNET provides protocol transparent, reliable, streaming data transmission between hosts (restricted, initially to DECnet and TCP/IP networks). DNET also provides variable length datagram service with optional return receipts

A Simple Multiprocessor Management System for Event-Parallel Computing

Offline software using TCP/IP sockets to distribute particle physics events to multiple UNIX/RISC workstations is described. A modular, building block approach was taken, which allowed tailoring to solve specific tasks efficiently and simply as they arose. The modest, initial cost was having to learn about sockets for interprocess communication. This multiprocessor management software has been used to control the reconstruction of eight billion raw data events from Fermilab Experiment E791.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, compressed Postscript, LaTeX. Submitted to NI

A Platform for Automating Chaos Experiments

The Netflix video streaming system is composed of many interacting services. In such a large system, failures in individual services are not uncommon. This paper describes the Chaos Automation Platform, a system for running failure injection experiments on the production system to verify that failures in non-critical services do not result in system outages.Comment: Conference publicatio

Discrete event simulation for the purpose of real-time performance evaluation of distributed hardware-in-the-loop simulators for autonomous driving vehicle validation

Hardware-in-the-loop test benches are distributed computer systems including software, hardware and networking devices, which require strict real-time guarantees. To guarantee strict real-time of the simulator the performance needs to be evaluated. To evaluate the timing performance a discrete event simulation model is built up. The input modeling is based on measurements from the real system in a prototype phase. The results of the simulation model are validated with measurements from a prototype of the real system. The workload is increased until the streaming source becomes unstable, by either exceeding a certain limit of bytes or exceeding the number of parallel software processes running on the cores of the central processing unit. To evaluate the performance beyond these limits, the discrete event simulation model needs to be enriched by a scheduler and a hardware model. To provide real-time guarantees an analytical model needs to be built up