Efficient Run-Time Environments for System-Level LET Programming

Growing requirements of large industrial and automotive software systems have initiated an ongoing move from monolithic and tightly integrated run-time environments (RTE) to virtual platforms implemented on fewer domain computers with heterogeneous physical architectures. This trend has given rise to new programming paradigms to enable specification, implementation and supervision of software systems that are predictable and robust under interference and change. One of those paradigms, the Logical Execution Time (LET), is now part of the automotive software standard, AUTOSAR. While originally applied to single shared-memory multicore processors, System-level LET (SL LET) extends this approach to virtual and distributed platforms providing a powerful paradigm for CPS in future industrial systems. This contribution explains and demonstrates the resulting challenges to the RTE and the opportunities to improve its efficiency, in particular the communication stack.