TASK SYNCHRONIZATION IN WIRELESS DISTRIBUTED NETWORKS USING A SHARED-CLOCK ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

Safety-critical embedded systems should exhibit robustness and fault tolerance.  Shared-clock (S-C) scheduling architectures have been developed to encapsulate the above qualities in resource-constrained distributed systems which employ a time-triggered (TT) architecture.  Previous work in this area has targeted ‘wired’ communication mediums (e. g.  local connections based on CAN). In this paper we begin to consider whether S-C architecture can be adapted for use in wireless environments.  This work is at an early stage and the main aims of the paper are: (1) to explain the operation of wired S-C designs; (2) to summarize the problems which are faced when attempting to use a S-C algorithm in a wireless environment; (3) to present some initial suggestions for ways in which a S-C algorithm might be adapted for use in a wireless environment; (4) to describe the design of a testbed which will be used to support further research in this area.