Design optimization of mixed time/event-triggered distributed embedded systems

Distributed embedded systems implemented with mixed, event-triggered task sets, which communicate over bus protocols consisting of both static and dynamic phases, are emerging as the new standard in application areas such as automotive electronics. In a previous paper, we developed a holistic timing analysis and scheduling approach for this category of systems. Based on this result, new design problems are solved, which we identified as characteristic for such hybrid systems: partitioning of the system functionality into time-triggered and event-triggered domains and the optimization of parameters corresponding to the communication protocol. We addressed both problems in the context of a heuristic which performs mapping and scheduling of the system functionality. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technique with extensive experiments.