Algorithms for Determining the Load of a Sporadic Task System TR-051201

In this report, we discuss a metric that characterizes the load of a sporadic task system. We give an exact, exponential-time algorithm that determines a task system’s load by essentially simulating the execution of task system. In addition, we also give an algorithm that can determine the load of a task system within an arbitrarily small threshold > 0. While the worst-case time complexity of the approximation is still possibly exponential, we have empirically observed that this algorithm generally provides a very significant reduction in the time that we must simulate the task system to obtain the load. Additionally, we provide proofs of correctness for our algorithms.