• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.32 no.8B
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• pp.509-520
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a real-time sensor node platform that guarantees the real-time scheduling of periodic and aperiodic tasks through a multitask-based software decomposition technique. Since existing sensor networking operation systems available in literature are not capable of supporting the real-time scheduling of periodic and aperiodic tasks, the preemption of aperiodic task with high priority can block periodic tasks, and so periodic tasks are likely to miss their deadlines. This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of how to structure periodic or aperiodic task decomposition in real-time sensor-networking platforms as regard to guaranteeing the deadlines of all the periodic tasks and aiming to providing aperiodic tasks with average good response time. A case study based on real system experiments is conducted to illustrate the application and efficiency of the multitask-based dynamic component execution environment in the sensor node equipped with a low-power 8-bit microcontroller, an IEEE802.15.4 compliant 2.4GHz RF transceiver, and several sensors. It shows that our periodic and aperiodic task decomposition technique yields efficient performance in terms of three significant, objective goals: deadline miss ratio of periodic tasks, average response time of aperiodic tasks, and processor utilization of periodic and aperiodic tasks.