Soft computations within integrated avionics systems

Reviews soft real-time avionics computations with a view to their integration into a distributed computing platform such as that proposed for integrated modular avionics (IMA). Soft computations are defined here as those computations which have long, highly variable and possibly unpredictable execution times. Their implementations must be engineered to assure adequate, if not optimal real-time performance. In conjunction with this, the operating system running on the IMA platform, must provide appropriate scheduling services. The paper opens by reviewing methods for the performance profiling of soft computations, and concludes with a table which attempts to map soft avionics requirements onto established computational models for adaptive real-time computation.