A GPU-aware Component Model Extension for Heterogeneous Embedded Systems

One way for modern embedded systems to tackle the demand for more complex functionality requiring more computational power is to take advantage of heterogeneous hardware. These hardware platforms are constructed from the combination of different processing units including both traditional CPUs and for example Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). However, there is a lack of efficient approaches supporting software development for such systems. In particular, modern software development approaches, such as component-based development, do not provide sufficient support for heterogeneous hardware platforms. This paper presents a component model extension, which defines specific features for components with GPU capabilities. The benefits of the proposed solution include an increased system performance by accelerating the communication between GPU-aware components and the possibility to control the distribution of GPU computation resources at system level.