Accurate Determination of Loop Iterations for Worst-Case Execution Time Analysis

Determination of accurate estimates for the Worst-Case Execution Time of a program is essential for guaranteeing the correct temporal behavior of any Real-Time System. Of particular importance is tightly bounding the number of iterations of loops in the program or excessive undue pessimism can result. This paper presents a novel approach to determining the number of iterations of a loop for such analysis. Program traces are collected and analyzed allowing the number of loop executions to be parametrically determined safely and precisely under certain conditions. The approach is mathematically proved to be safe and its practicality is demonstrated on a series of benchmarks.