Handbook

Real-Time Engineering aims to equip students with the necessary computing and engineering skills to be able to work with and design real-time computer systems for electrical and mechanical systems. The course is problem-based, so students will address the issues and concepts involved in building a real-time computer system. Key topics include introduction to real-time digital control systems and their implementation on computers, real-time operating systems and processes, the Q-model, static and dynamic scheduling algorithms, inter-process communication and memory management (data buffering, shared memory, FIFOs, messages), task synchronizations (semaphores, mutual exclusion, interrupts), and pseudo-kernels as an alternative to real-time operating systems. Additionally, the course covers strategies for fault detection, fault tolerance and reliability assessment in real-time systems. Although the course will exercise analytical skills, there is a strong emphasis on practical implementation using an embedded real-time operating system and the C programming language.