Dynamic Load Balancing in Embedded Systems Based on Triplet-based Hierarchical Interconnection Architecture

Dynamic load balancing (DLB) for conventional parallel multiprocessor systems has been studied extensively; however, DLB for parallel multiprocessor embedded systems is relatively new. To efficiently utilize computing resources provided by parallel multiprocessor embedded systems, the underlying DLB algorithms must be designed deeply considering both architectural and dynamic load features of the systems. In this paper, a new type of parallel multiprocessor embedded system architectures - Triplet-based Hierarchical Interconnection Architecture (THIA) is presented along with the corresponding DLB algorithm (THIA-DLBA). THIA-DLBA is distributed controlled and sender initiated. And it makes use of the vector load index, load migration operator and message passing mechanism to help systems achieve load balance. To compare the efficiency and performance of TBHA-DLBA and other three DLB algorithms, a THIA embedded system simulator and matrix computation were considered as the simulation system. The results indicate that THIA-DLBA can help embedded systems achieve high-performance in dealing with compute-intensive tasks.