Real Time Framework Parallella : documentation

Introduction

Source coode for this project can be currently found in the eclipse APP4MC examples repository. Initial merge of this project with APP4MC examples repository can be found in this link.

Soruce code is also available on GitHub.

This file is intended to be an introduction that explains the main functionality of RTFParallella framework.

What is RTFParallella

RTFParallella is a framework that allows the easy implementation of nulti-core, real-time applications on the Adapteva Parallella hardware platform by using the 16-core Epiphany III co-processor on board and exploiting the Network on Chip (NoC) architecture of that chip for deterministic multi-core implementations of automotive software. The organization of implementation code within the framework as well as user code has been arranged according to Amalthea. models of a multi-core system (both hardware and software artifacts), The code will only require attributes of tasks and their deployment on cores as a tuple of Amalthea parameters.

Contribution

This project has been started in the context of Google summer of code. During Google Summer of Code the following has been contributed to RTFParallella:

• Fixed the FreeRTOS port for Epiphany III processor to be able to realize RMS schedulling.
• Relaized RMS scheduling policy for tasks on Epiphany processor.
• Adapted Amalthea model task structure to run using FreeRTOS.
• Added support for shared memory management and distributed shared memory management.
• Added visuallization of real-time behavior of amalthea model on EpiphanyIII processor.
• Added examples that could be changed (manually or by code generation) to realize any Amalthea model. (given it fits within the parallella hardware constraints).

Quick start

• Clone RTFParallella source code and examples from the APP4MC examples repository.
• Set up cross complilation environment as in Cross compilation setup (steps):.
• run patch_init.sh

sh patch_init.sh

• run make all from src/parallella
• set up the deployment script as in Deployment Script.
• deploy the binaries to Parallella (.elf files) and (host_main) using parallellaDeploy
• SSH into parallella board and run host_main

Documentation scope

This documentation will include the following:

• A step-by-step guide on the setup of the Adapteva Parallella Hardware platform.
• A guide on setting up the eclipse IDE for cross compilation nad deployment/ running of RTFParallella code on Adapteva Parallella.
• A guide showing the intended usage of the framework and how to manipulate such framework to realize the desired real time behavior.
• The design of RTFP and how it could be adapted to other hardware platforms.
• Limitations that should be taken into account when using RTFP.

Index

• Parallella hardware
  • Notes
• Adapteva Parallella setup
  • Dependencies:
  • Cross compilation setup (steps):
  • Notes
• Binary deployment on Parallella
  • Deployment Script
  • Deployment parameters
  • Invocation of Deployemnt script
  • Eclipse launch configuration setup
  • Known issues
• Real Time Framework Parallella
  • Introduction
  • Platform dependencies
  • How to use RTFP
• Task management in RTFP
  • Overview
  • RMS task scheduling
  • Fixed priority task scheduling
  • Creating tasks using RTFP
• BTF Specification
  • BTF Structure
  • Supported Entities and Events
• BTF Tracing Framework
  • Overview
  • Compilation Steps
  • Framework Implementation Details
• BTF traces in RTFParallella
  • Overview
  • Feature Enhancements
  • Adapdation on RTFParallella
• Shared memory management in RTFP
  • Overview
  • Shared memory model
  • Shared memory initialization and allocation in RTFP
  • Shared memory write operation in RTFP
  • Shared memory read operation in RTFP
  • known issues
  • Future developments
• Distributed shared memory management in RTFP
  • Overview
  • Distributed shared memory model
  • Distributed shared memory initialization and allocation in RTFP
  • shared memory access in RTFP
• Memory Mapping
  • Internal Memory
  • External Memory
  • Notes
• Utility functions - task tracing
  • Overview
  • Tracing running taks
  • Tracing time
  • Debug traces
• Utility functions - task operations
  • Overview
  • Sleep in Epiphany cores
• Utility functions - Visualization
  • Overview
  • Distributed shared memory visulaization
  • Shared memory visualization
  • Output
  • Output table legend
  • Output table values
• Adapting FreeRTOS to RTFP
  • Overview
  • RTFP task structure in FreeRTOS
  • Creating FreeRTOS tasks for AmaltheaTask objects
• Scheduling example
  • Overview
  • RMS scheduling of the model
  • Example task implementation
  • Example event chain implementation
• BTF tracing example
  • Overview
  • Results
• Limitation and Future Work
  • Limitations
  • Future Work