Sloth - A Minimal-Effort Kernel for Embedded SystemsThe main research goal in the Sloth project is to investigate how to make
better use of given hardware abstractions in (embedded) operating systems.When designing an operating system, the operating system engineer always
faces a trade-off decision between an efficient system implementation on a
given hardware platform and portability to other platforms. This is because
usually operating system kernels make use of a hardware abstraction layer
internally, which hides platform specifics to a certain extent, facilitating the
porting process. Whereas sacrificing efficiency and memory footprint for portability might be
feasible in desktop and server operating system kernels, it is difficult to argue
this way
when building embedded operating systems. On the one hand, those systems
need to be configurable and tailorable to the application needs, which runs on
top of the kernel. This is what our research in the CiAO and VAMOS projects is
focused on. On the other hand, the kernel will always need some
kind of hardware abstraction layer, which needs to be ported to the different
hardware platforms. The Sloth project investigates how to move down that
abstraction layer a little, making better use of the underlying hardware
platform to implement the offered system services and abstractions, trading
the better efficiency and footprint for slightly more porting effort and
hardware dependency. The first part of the Sloth project is to investigate how to better implement
threads in embedded real-time kernels. The second part of the Sloth project, named Sleepy Sloth, focuses on how to
provide the application with more flexibility by providing a blocking thread
abstraction while still executing efficiently using interrupt hardware
scheduling and dispatching. The third part of the Sloth project, entitled Sloth on Time, investigates how to efficiently implement time-triggered real-time operating systems by making extensive use of timer cell arrays to dispatch time-triggered tasks and to implement related kernel services. | Project manager: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Daniel Lohmann,
Project participants: Prof. i. R. Dr.-Ing. habil. Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat, Dr.-Ing. Fabian Scheler, Dipl.-Inf. Rainer Müller,
Keywords: Embedded Systems; Operating Systems; Abstract Machines
Start: 1.1.2009
Contact:
| Publications |
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Hofer, Wanja ; Lohmann, Daniel ; Scheler, Fabian ; Schröder-Preikschat, Wolfgang: Sloth: Threads as Interrupts. In: Baker, Theodore P. (Ed.) : Proceedings of the 30th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2009) (30th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2009) Washington, D.C., USA December 2009). Los Alamitos, CA, USA : IEEE Computer Society, 2009, pp 204-213. - ISBN 978-0-7695-3875-4 [doi>10.1109/RTSS.2009.18] | Hofer, Wanja ; Lohmann, Daniel ; Schröder-Preikschat, Wolfgang: Sleepy Sloth: Threads as Interrupts as Threads. In: Almeida, Luis ; Brandt, Scott (Ed.) : Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2011) (32nd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2011) Vienna, Austria November 2011). Los Alamitos, CA, USA : IEEE Computer Society, 2011, pp 67-77. - ISBN 978-0-7695-4591-2 [doi>10.1109/RTSS.2011.14] | Hofer, Wanja ; Danner, Daniel ; Müller, Rainer ; Scheler, Fabian ; Schröder-Preikschat, Wolfgang ; Lohmann, Daniel: Sloth on Time: Efficient Hardware-Based Scheduling for Time-Triggered RTOS. In: Lu, Chenyang ; Almeida, Luis (Ed.) : Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2012) (33rd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS 2012) San Juan, Puerto Rico December 2012). Los Alamitos, CA, USA : IEEE Computer Society, 2012, pp 237-247. - ISBN 978-0-7695-4869-2 [doi>10.1109/RTSS.2012.75] | Hofer, Wanja ; Lohmann, Daniel ; Scheler, Fabian ; Schröder-Preikschat, Wolfgang: Sloth: Let the Hardware Do the Work! In: ACM SIGOPS (Ed.) : Proceedings of the Work-in-Progress Session of the 22nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP-WiP 2009) (Work-in-Progress Session of the 22nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP-WiP 2009) Big Sky, MT, USA October 2009). 2009, pp 1. |
Institution: Chair of Computer Science 4 (Systems Software)
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