Message from the Program Chair

n behalf of the Euromicro Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 17th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2005), held in Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. During the past years the conference has established itself as the prime European forum for realtime system researchers. Impressively, this year’s edition continues a steady growth in attractiveness and quality. This year we again received a record number of submissions: 145. It was a hard and long process to select 26 excellent papers, which are compiled in this volume. All submissions received at least three reviews, with more than half of them receiving four, resulting in an overall number of more than 500 reviews—involving more than 160 reviewers—being conducted. An important piece of the process was the Program Committee meeting, which was held at the facilities of the real-time systems group at the Technical University of Munich. But the process also included lots of e-mail discussions prior to and after the Program Committee meeting. It was definitely an outstanding performance by all 33 Program Committee members and their co-reviewers. The 26 papers are organized into eight main conference sessions that address a broad spectrum of techniques and applications of real-time computing. This year’s conference also includes keynote talks by specialists from the industry, and two work-in-progress sessions, chaired by Isabelle Puaut, which will provide an excellent forum for exchanging and discussing ideas about emerging research activities in the area of real-time computing. Following the success of previous years, a day of satellite workshops will allow researchers to present and discuss their ideas in smaller and interactive workshops. This year, four workshops have been organized: the 5th International Workshop on Worst Case Execution Time Analysis (WCET), chaired by Reinhard Willhelm; the 4th International Workshop on Real-Time Networks (RTN), chaired by Jörg Kaiser; the 1st International Workshop on Real-Time and Control (RTC), chaired by Karl-Erik Årzén; and the 1st International Workshop on Operating System Platforms for Embedded Real-Time Applications (OSPERT), chaired by Giuseppe Lipari. It would not have been possible to set up this exciting program without the close cooperation and support of the General Chair Guillem Bernat, and the excellent work of Julián Proenza and Guillermo Rodríguez-Navas in sorting out all of the complexities of local arrangements. Another huge share of the credit must go to Gerhard Fohler, the chair of the Euromicro Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems, for his great enthusiasm and leadership on all ECRTS matters. His advice and almost omnipresence cheered us as we handled adversity. I would also like to acknowledge all of the easy cooperation and support provided by our proceedings editors at IEEE, Jeniferdawn “JD” Cantarella and Randall Bilof. Appreciation goes also to Brigitte Kloeckner at the Euromicro Office for all the administrative support, and to Dirk Peters for the support on the Paperdyne conference management system. Finally, I would like to show our appreciation to Alexander von Buelow and Jürgen Stohr in putting together the required arrangements for the Program Committee meeting held at Munich in the gloom of March. I wish you all a very interesting and exciting conference, surrounded by the vibrant environment provided by Palma and its surroundings. We look forward to seeing you next year in Dresden for ECRTS06!