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A Non-Blocking Buffer Mechanism for Real-Time Event Message Communication

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Abstract

It is desirable to facilitate data communications among concurrent computation threads without incurring non-essential synchronizations in real-time computing systems. An interaction mechanism, called the non-blocking writer (NBW) mechanism and invented by Kopetz, is useful in facilitating state message communication from a producer to a consumer thread in real-time applications. A more widely applicable practical interaction mechanism called the non-blocking buffer (NBB) is presented here. The NBB mechanism can be viewed as a significant extension of the NBW mechanism. The NBB mechanism facilitates communication of event messages from a producer to a consumer without causing any party to experience blocking. Therefore, its application scope includes all conceivable producer-consumer situations. The NBB mechanism is not a replacement of but rather a companion to the NBW mechanism since the latter facilitates the most efficient state message communication. The application of NBBs in building middleware supporting real-time objects is discussed as a demonstration of the utility of the NBB mechanism.

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Correspondence to K. H. (Kane) Kim.

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(Kane) Kim, K.H. A Non-Blocking Buffer Mechanism for Real-Time Event Message Communication. Real-Time Syst 32, 197–211 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11241-005-4680-7

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