Aperiodic traffic in response time analyses with adjustable safety level

In distributed real-time systems it is crucial to ensure the temporal validity of the data exchanged among the nodes. Classically, the frame worst case response time (WCRT) analyses, and the software tools which implement them, do not take into account the aperiodic traffic. One of the main reasons for this is that the aperiodic traffic is generally very difficult to characterize (i.e., the arrival patterns of the aperiodic frames). The consequence of this is that one tends to underestimate the WCRT, which may have an impact on the overall safety of the system. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic approach to model the aperiodic traffic and integrate it into response time analysis. The approach allows the system designer to choose the safety level of the analysis based on the system's dependability requirements. Compared to existing deterministic approaches the approach leads to more realistic WCRT evaluation and thus to a better dimensioning of the hardware platform.