Deadlock Prevention in Process Control Computer System

Deadlock can occur wherever multiple processes interact. System deadlock is a serious problem in a multiprogramming environment. The approaches to this problem can be divided into three categories: (1) prevention, (2) detection and recovery, and (3) avoidance. This paper proposes a variation of the first approach, partially applying ideas developed in the second and third approaches. This is an approach that is especially effective in process control computer systems, in which the application programs are usually fixed once designed. Using four predetermined application program parameters obtained in the program development stage, a directed graph model and a 'restriction' matrix model are introduced representing