A framework for specification and design of software for advanced sensor systems

An investigation is presented of the relationship between external inputs and the demands imposed on the various resources in advanced sensor systems. This reveals the deficiency of the classical execution model for hard real-time systems, consisting of periodic and sporadic tasks, for modeling the workload in such systems. The classical model is extended with additional attributes for describing the behavior of tasks and with another type of task, adaptive tasks, which are repetitive but not strictly periodic. Notation is presented for specification of computational activities and the dynamic behavior of software in such systems. Also proposed is a multilevel scheduling structure for scheduling system resources (e.g. processors, sensors, and memory)