TDDB72: Concurrent Programming, Operating Systems,
and Real-Time Operating Systems

RT-Project HT 2006

The Real-Time Project in TDDB72 is to perform literature research and write a technical report on an RTOS topic. This is done in groups of two students. Selected reports will be presented in a presentation session.

Resources

• Schedule for TDDB72 RTOS-conference presentations/opposition 5/12 10-12
• All reports 2006
  
• Project groups with topics
  
• OH presentation
  
• Reading material with links to RTOS pages
  
• ACM Digital Library
  
• IEEE Xplore
  
• Google Scholar

Project Status, Project Groups, Presentation Schedule

The project starts in period 2.

Project groups with their topics will be announced on this web page.

Scheduling of presentations will also be noted on that page.

Topics:

• Compare a feature of two Real-time Operating Systems.

  Example: Comparison of memory management in RT-Linux and QNX

Or:

• Propose an extension to a non-realtime OS aiming at making it a Real-time OS.

  Example: Extending the scheduler in Nachos for real-time task processing

Focus the topic of your report by selecting a specific issue/feature to be investigated, based on the reading list and course material available on the course webpage. Decide on one type of real-time system, hard or soft.

A hearing of selected teams is made in presentation sessions on 5 December 2006. All teams are expected to participate, although only the result of selected teams will be presented.

A review board will be responsible for reviewing incoming reports, send feed back to authors (possibly including requests for clarification) and finally to select reports and organize the hearing.

About the report

Length and format:
It is expected that your report will be between 3500 and 6000 words (excluding references), is written in a professional manner (build complete sentences, use a spelling checker) and does clearly contrast and motivate all suggestions and conclusions made.
Leave margins to help the correcting assistants with their task.
You may use any text processor (MS Word, LATEX, ...) but please submit in either MS Word or PDF format.

Originality:
You are not supposed to browse around and copy paragraphs from here and there on the web. You are supposed to read, digest, think, and then write your own presentation of the topic at hand. Citations or pictures from other work or presentations must be clearly marked as such, and a reference to the source of the cited material must be included. Note that we routinely check for this. During fall of 2003, one student group was charged for plagiarism by the university discipline board. We do not want that to happen again!

Language:
We recommend English, as it is both a good exercise for you and also eases the job of the (non-Swedish-speaking) assistants who correct the report and chair the presentations. Comments on your report will be given in English, and the presentations will be in English as well.

Structure:
As any technical report it will have approximately the following structure:

• Title - A descriptive title, 1-2 lines long, is more appropriate than an eye-catching short but too general phrase.
• Authors and Affiliation - Who are you, and how can you be contacted?
• Abstract - State the purpose of this report (is it a design description to be used by programmers when implementing stuff, a technical memo for the company board or what? How is it intended to be used?), what is the topic addressed by this report (what questions does it attempt to answer), and what is the main conclusion made in this report.
• Introduction - elaborate on the abstract, describe (briefly) the background of the problem and the disposition of your report (e.g., "in Section A we identify and quantify different aspects of a RT-OS that need to be addressed and in Sections B to M we present the different alternatives, followed by a summary and conclusions in Section N"...)
• Body - the body of your report. This is the place where you write what is stated in the introduction.
• Conclusions - state the result of your findings with a short motivation, and what your recommendation for the steering committee is.
• References - a listing of all documents that you are relating to in the report. If something exists in this list, it should also be mentioned in the text. References to web pages can be used if they are official in some sense, i.e., they are not a personal page of some employee at a company or institution.

About the presentation

Each team of two students will be scheduled together with 1-2 other teams that cover the same or a related topic. One of the teams will present their report (about 10 minutes - prepare well!) and the other two teams are to comment and reflect on the presented work, and when relevant, relate to or contrast with their own findings (about 5 minutes). The idea is that all three teams thereby will be presenting all of their findings for a larger audience, that the teams not presenting will stimulate a discussion around the presented material by the follow-up questions and/or comments. And the rest of the audience is also encouraged to ask questions, to contrast and compare to their own findings.

There will be 2 parallel sessions of 2x45 minutes scheduled for these presentations on tuesday 5 december 2006, 10:15-12:00. They appear as lessons in your central web schema. Therefore, a conflict with other courses is not an acceptable excuse for not showing up.

Note: Some of you will be scheduled for presenting your work, the others for opposition. However, presentors may be sick, so we may have to reschedule what group does what with short notice. Therefore, you must all be reasonably prepared to do a presentation at short notice even if you are scheduled for opposition.

Note: Presentations and opposition will be given in English.

Note: Presenters please keep the time limit. If necessary we will have to abort presentations after 10 minutes in order to give all presenters an equal share of time. It may be a good idea to practice the presentation (and take the time) the day before.

Note: We try to arrange for a data projector but do not give any guarantee that it works. Also, we do not provide a computer for the presentations. Bring your own laptop (or borrow one) if you want to use presentation software, and check the screen resolution etc. in time before your session starts so that we can switch quickly between presentations.
Most probably, also an OH projector will be there.
Be prepared to have a backup strategy if something breaks down, which means to instead use the white board if necessary.

Important dates and deadlines:

• 24/10 10:15-ca. 11:00 - Introduction of this project for TDDB72
• 30/10 - Deadline (24:00) for signing up with a team mate on one of the tasks.
  The procedure is as follows:
  • Find a team mate and decide the topic.
  • Decide on what language to write in - Swedish or English. Most of your writing "out there" will be in English anyway, why not start practicing now? Note that the presentation will be in English anyway.
  • Registration: Send an email to Christoph Kessler with the subject "TDDB72 RTP registration". The e-mail should contain your names, personal numbers, e-mail addresses and the title of the report.
• 19/11 - Deadline (24:00) for submitting reports, by email to Christoph Kessler with subject TDDB72 RTP submission, with your names and personnumbers and report title stated in the message body, and with the report attached.
• 27/11 - Notification of acceptance or request for updates (i.e., response on your report). The earlier you hand in a report, the earlier you will get a notification back.
  Announcement of students who present and who do the opposition.
• 5/12 10:15-12:00 - The presentations of selected reports for the steering committee and your co-workers.
• 11/12 - Deadline (24:00) for submitting updated reports

Submission of reports

• Send an e-mail to Christoph Kessler with the subject TDDB72 RTP submission, your names, personnumbers and the report title in the message body, and with the report attached as a PDF or Word document.
• You will not receive any notice from us other than that you should be able to find the information for your project group updated within 72 hours after submitting the report.

Submitted reports will be made available on-line for all students signed up for the project (and for IDA staff), and will be removed when the course is finished.

FAQ

• My team mate is not going to do the project, how do I find a new one?
  Try sending an email to tddb72-ht2006 @ student.liu.se

Steering Committee

Review Board