Heuristic resource allocation strategies for embedded systems with continuous mode changes

This paper discusses the problem of controlling highly dynamic technical facilities such as mechatronic systems. To enforce the required behavior, sensors informing about the status of the facility are periodically read. The sensor signals are processed in end-to-end computations by computational activities, and, in case the measured data deviate from the technical specification, result in new settings of actuators. We consider the case that the changes of operating conditions of the facility underlie continuous mode changes. It is assumed that the variety of operation modes mechatronic systems may work in are restricted in the sense that a higher requirement in one system component may exclude higher requirements in other components. We expect that such dependencies are specified in the technical specification of the facility, and that from them the domain of realistic modes can be derived. The objective of this work is defining heuristic algorithms that intend to finding minimum sets of feasible allocations for a fixed number of processors, and comparing their usefulness experimentally.