Adaptive Scheduling for Real-time Network Communication

Distributed real-time applications require efficient scheduling to improve processor and network utilization, and to avoid missing task deadlines. Current scheduling algorithms typically do not utilize applicationlevel information nor do they adapt to changes in application state. We describe a system in which users define dynamic, application-specific, scheduling policies using a fuzzy-logic approach based on natural language rules. The scheduler controls message order to maintain task priorities across distributed processors, and incorporates network performance information in the scheduling policy. An example is given for an avionics system simulation on a RT-CORBA middleware platform. Keywords— Real-time, scheduling, network communication, fuzzy logic