Course Websites

CS 424 - Real-Time Systems

Last offered Fall 2023

Official Description

Supervisory control aspects of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS): fundamentals of reliability analysis, real-time scheduling, simple feedback control, software fault tolerance architecture, wireless networking and energy saving, principles of safety critical system engineering. Student groups design and demonstrate supervisory control architecture for a robot. Course Information: 3 undergraduate hours. 3 or 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One of CS 241, CS 341 or ECE 391.

Related Faculty

Course Director

Text(s)

Varies by semester.

Learning Goals

Apply principles of reliability and probability theory to analyze the reliability of a real-time system (1)

Analyse a complex real-time system to determine if it can meet time and resources constraints (1)

Design a real-time system subject to multiple safety-critical, mission-criticial, and optimization requirements (2)

Evaluate multiple design alternatives and select the best real-time system design that meets the requirements (2)

Implement, as a team assignment, a robot guidance system (on real robot hardware) that adheres to learned best design principles (2), (5), (6)

Articulate to classmates the advantages of one's design, argue for the specific design decisions made, and explain empirically observed robot performance (3)

Argue for the best prioritization of conflicting design requirements in a real-time system (especially an autonomous, intelligent one) in a manner that best addresses safety, mission, and ethical concerns (4) (3)

Topic List

Intrdocution to real-time systems

Complexity reduction designs

Reliability modeling and analysis

Dependency and safety analysis

Requirement engineering

Scheduling and schedulability analysis

Energy trade-offs in embedded real-time systems

Wireless RT communication

Labs and team assignments to apply the key concepts and methods

Student-led presentations to articulate design advantages and lessons learned.

Assessment and Revisions

Revisions in last 6 years Approximately when revision was done Reason for revision Data or documentation available? Documentation provided?
Adding the iRbot Lab for supervisory control of RT Systems and synchronize the labs with lectures fall 2011 Students had difficulty to internalize surpervisory control Manual and instructions for each lab Instructions and Lab Manual

Required, Elective, or Selected Elective

Selected Elective.

TitleSectionCRNTypeHoursTimesDaysLocationInstructor
Real-Time SystemsPG51776LCD31230 - 1345 W F  0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci Tarek Abdelzaher
Real-Time SystemsPU51775LCD31230 - 1345 W F  0216 Siebel Center for Comp Sci Tarek Abdelzaher