PhD Position F/M Design and analysis of parametric adaptive real-time systems

Contract type : Fixed-term contract

Level of qualifications required : Graduate degree or equivalent

Fonction : PhD Position

About the research centre or Inria department

The  Inria University of Lille centre, created in 2008, employs 360 people  including 305 scientists in 15 research teams. Recognised for its strong  involvement in the socio-economic development of the Hauts-De-France  region, the Inria University of Lille centre pursues a close  relationship with large companies and SMEs. By promoting synergies  between researchers and industrialists, Inria participates in the  transfer of skills and expertise in digital technologies and provides  access to the best European and international research for the benefit  of innovation and companies, particularly in the region.For more  than 10 years, the Inria University of Lille centre has been located at  the heart of Lille's university and scientific ecosystem, as well as at  the heart of Frenchtech, with a technology showroom based on Avenue de  Bretagne in Lille, on the EuraTechnologies site of economic excellence  dedicated to information and communication technologies (ICT).

Context

The PhD student will be part of the SyCoMoRES team of Inria Lille & CRIStAL lab, which currently hosts 3 fellow PhD students and one postdoc. Lille is a city close to Brussels, Paris & London, easily reachable by train, with a large student population and a number of cultural places & events.

PhD students are appointed for a duration of 3 years. We plan to organize weekly research meetings with the PhD student.

Assignment

A real-time system controls a physical device in its environment, at a rate adapted to the device evolution. This requires not only to compute correct values, but also to compute values at the right time. Real-time systems can be found in several industrial domains, such as automotive, aeronautics, nuclear plants or automated production lines.

A real-time system is usually represented as a set of concurrent tasks subject to timing constraints (deadlines). In order to guarantee the respect of timing constraints, first a worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis is performed. Then, this information is used to perform a schedulability analysis so as to guarantee that all tasks will meet their deadlines, when executed concurrently at run-time.

While WCET is usually computed as a constant value, an alternatice is to compute a WCET formula that depends on various parameters of the system, for instance procedure arguments. This has several important benefits, such as enabling modular WCET analysis, component reuse, library or system call integration, or development of adaptive real-time systems.

The objective of the thesis is to contribute to a novel design and analysis methodology for adaptive real-time systems based on parametric WCET. The applicant will investigate one or several of the following research directions.

First, sensitivity analysis could be used to compute the intervals of admissible values of the execution time that make the system schedulable. Second, we could propose a sensitivity analysis based on admissible procedure argument values, instead of execution times. Finally, WCET formulas can be instantiated at run-time, at which point parameter values become known, to implement an adaptive scheduler that takes it decisions based on the current value of the instantiated WCET. In particular, a promising research direction would be to extend resource reservation algorithms with a semi-clairvoyant scheduling approach.

Main activities

The following activities will be carried out during the thesis:

  • Bibliographic research;
  • Proposing solutions for the identified research directions;
  • Writing research papers on the thesis results;
  • Teaching (optional)

 

Skills

Technical skills: a good background on computer science and embedded systems.

Languages: English. French is not required.

Other valued, appreciated: real-time systems, theoretical computer science. Autonomy.

Benefits package

  • Subsidized meals
  • Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
  • Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
  • Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
  • Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
  • Social, cultural and sports events and activities
  • Access to vocational training
  • Social security coverage