A real-time virtual machine for task placement in loosely-coupled computer systems

Nowadays, virtualization and real-time systems are increasingly relevant. Real-time virtual machines are adequate for closely-coupled computer systems, execute tasks from associated language only and re-target tasks to the new platform at runtime. Complex systems in space, avionics, and military applications usually operate with Loosely-Coupled Computer Systems in a real-time environment for years. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to support task transfer between loosely-coupled computers in a real-time environment to add more features without software upgrading. The approach is based on automatic source code transformation into a platform-independent “Structured Byte-Code” (SBC) and a real-time virtual machine (SBC-RVM). Unlike Ordinary virtual machines which virtualize a specific processor for a specific code only, SBC-RVM transforms source code from any language with a known grammar into SBC without re-targeting the new platform. SBC-RVM executes local or placed tasks and preserving real-time constraints and adequate for Loosely-coupled computer systems.