Teaching software engineering for real-time design

Abstract

Designing software for real-time systems continues to be a challenge. In addition to functional requirements, real-time systems typically have strict requirements in the areas of performance, size, and the need for concurrency which complicates the design process[PRE87]. The best design will depend on the particular requirements of a system. A designer must learn to apply principles for determining which design will best fit the needs. Teaching students skills in real-time design becomes more difficult because of the many design issues. Although software engineering principles must be expanded to handle the complexity of real-time systems, these principles should still be applied to real-time design. Since TI develops many real-time systems, TI teaches an "Introduction to Real-Time Software" course to improve the design skills of novice real-time designers. This paper describes the content of the real-time course and how software engineering principles are applied to real-time design. It also describes how real-time design concepts are reinforced through examples and exercises.