A Real-Time Scheduling Method for Industrial Edge Applications Based on Event Types

The development of industrial edge computing brings information and intelligence to traditional industrial control systems. As industrial controllers and edge devices support multiple processor cores, the computing capabilities of field devices have been significantly enhanced. An edge device can run multiple industrial applications simultaneously with different real-time constraints including motion control, image processing, data acquisition, and monitoring. The IEC 61499 standard introduced the event-driven mechanism for industrial control. In this paper, real-time requirements for event types with different deadline attributes are proposed. In addition, scheduling rules and the thread pool-based execution mechanism are investigated to guarantee real-time constraints and determinism. Finally, the proposed method and its performance are evaluated by a case study of a cold-rolled steel simulation production line.