On Real-Time Performance of Multitasking with RTAI

To meet the real-time and deterministic requirements in industrial control network, the Linux system is modified to encompass real-time application interface (RTAI) as a real-time extension for the Linux kernel. To study the realtime performance of RTAI, multitasking communication under client/server mode and multithreading technology is realized on a personal computer with RTnet protocol stack. A case study of Powerlink performance indicators between the master node and the slave node is discussed. The experiment results show that RTAI may be used as a soft real-time controller for networked devices in multitasking applications. The simulation results in this article are useful references for RTAI as the real-time industrial network operating system framework.