ERWF: Embedded Real-Time Workflow Engine for User-Centric Cyber-Physical Systems

Many modern embedded systems, such as cyber-physical systems, feature close integration of computation and physical components. Configurability, efficiency, adaptability, reliability, and usability are essential features for such systems. A workflow engine is a software application that manages workflows. It helps developers separate control flows from activities of the system, and thus is able to enhance configurability and development efficiency. This work aims at the design and implementation of a workflow engine for cyber-physical systems so as to configure workflows with less efforts. To meet timing requirements, the engine is designed to schedule activities to meet their timing requirements, and provides admission control so that these requirements of a set of workflows are guaranteed as long as it is admitted. A humanoid robot is used as the test-bed for the workflow engine. We model robot applications as workflows, and show that how the workflow engine provides real time guarantee and enhances its configurability.