Dynamic Memory Management for Software Product Family Architectures in Embedded Real-Time Systems

Dynamic memory management is one part of the software system that influences the performance and the cost of a product the most. In the context of an embedded real-time system, several requirements must be taken into account. The system must be optimized due to the limitation of memory. Real-time deadlines must be respected: the dynamic memory management system must allocate and deallocate blocks in due time. One more challenge is represented when a dynamic memory management system is developed for a product family architecture, which is representative of a set of related products. We present a scenarios-based approach to analyze and evaluate dynamic memory management systems for embedded real-time systems in a software product family architecture. Architectural transformations and improvements against the tradeoffs for the software product family are analyzed.