Workshop on

Java Technologies for Real-Time and Embedded Systems

 November  3-7, 2003 

Catania, Sicily, Italy

Proceedings published by Springer LNCS

Over 90 percent of all microprocessors are now used for real-time and embedded applications, and the behavior of many of these applications is constrained by the physical world. Higher-level programming languages and middleware are needed to robustly and productively design, implement, compose, integrate, validate, and enforce real-time constraints along with conventional functional requirements and reusable components.

Designing real-time and embedded systems that implement their required capabilities, are dependable and predictable, and are parsimonious in their use of limited computing resources is hard; building them on time and within budget is even harder. Moreover, due to global competition for marketshare and engineering talent, companies are now also faced with the problem of developing and delivering new products in short time frames. It is therefore essential that the production of real-time embedded systems can take advantage of languages, tools, and methods that enable higher software productivity.

Ideally, developers should use a programming languages that shields them from many accidental complexities, such as type errors, memory management, and steep learning curves. The Java programming language has become an attractive choice because of its safety, productivity, its relatively low maintenance costs, and the availability of well trained developers.

Although its good software engineering characteristics, Java is unsuitable for developing real-time embedded systems, mainly due to under-specification of thread scheduling and the presence of garbage collection. Recently, to address these problems, a number of extension to Java have been proposed, the two most representative being the Experts Group Real-Time Specification (RTSJ) for Java and  the J-Consortium Real-Time Core Extension (RTCore). The intent of these specifications  is the development of real-time applications by providing several additions such as extending the Java memory model, providing stronger semantics in thread scheduling, and so on.

Goal

There is an increasingly growing interest in Real-Time Java in both the research community and the industry, because of its challenges and its potential impact on the development of embedded and real-time applications. The goal of the proposed workshop is to gather researchers working on real-time and embedded Java to identify the challenging problem that still need to be properly solved in order to assure the success of the of Real-Time Java as a technology, and to report results and experience gained by researchers.

Participants are expected to submit a position paper or an extended abstract of at most 10 pages. Accepted papers will be published along with the OMT 2003 Proceedings on Springer  Lecture Notes on Computer Science. Topics of interest to this workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Performances, Predictability, Footprint

• Scheduling Frameworks

• Feasibility Analysis

• Industrial Experiences

• Fundamental developments in the theory and practice of Real-Time and Embedded Java

• Extension to the RTSJ 

• Extension to RTCore

• Experience implementing the RTSJ or RTCore 

• Real-Time Java and QoS-Enabled Component Models

• Tool support for Real-Time and Embedded Java

• Memory Management Techniques and Garbage Collectors for small memory-sized systems

• Memory Management Techniques and Garbage Collectors for Real-Time Systems

• Distributed Real-Time Java

• Off-line Native Compilers and/or Just-in-Time Compiling Techniques for
  Embedded and Real-Time Systems

• JVM Implementation Experiences for Embedded and Real-Time Systems

• Timing analysis techniques

• Idiom and Patterns for Java based Embedded and Real-Time Systems
  

• Paper Submission:                18 July 2003

• Notification of Acceptance:  18 August 2003

• Camera Ready Paper Due:     27 August 2003

Program Co-Chairs

Angelo Corsaro...........Washington University, USA

Ron Cytron...............Washington University, USA

Corrado Santoro.........University of Catania, Italy

Local Organizing Chair

Antonella Di Stefano.........University of Catania, Italy

Program Committee Members