Evaluating Android OS for embedded real-time systems

摘要

Since its official public release, Android has capturedthe interest from companies, developers and the generalaudience. From that time up to now, this software platformhas been constantly improved either in terms of features orsupported hardware and, at the same time, extended to newtypes of devices different from the originally intended mobileones. However, there is a feature that has not been exploredyet - its real-time capabilities.This paper intends to explore this gap and provide a basisfor discussion on the suitability of Android in order to be usedin Open Real-Time environments. By analysing the softwareplatform, with the main focus on the virtual machine and itsunderlying operating system environments, we are able to pointout its current limitations and, therefore, provide a hint ondifferent perspectives of directions in order to make Androidsuitable for these environments.It is our position that Android may provide a suitablearchitecture for real-time embedded systems, but the real-timecommunity should address its limitations in a joint effort atall of the platform layers.