Experience in building a real-time extension library for Java

Abstract

For building real-time control programs on PC controllers, we designed and implemented a real-time extension library to enhance the Java virtual machine that was already available in the real-time operating system we used. Our extension library has the following advantages: First, the underlying Java virtual machine needs no modification to accommodate it. Second, this extension library is easily ported to any other priority-based real-time operating system. Third, the core of this extension library is basically derived from a subset of the Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ) standard, and thus our real-time control program can be moved to a forthcoming RTSJ-compliant Java virtual machine without much difficulty. In brief, our work may help suggest ways of implementing RTSJ, or the notion of (degrees of) "minimal" compliance/support of RTSJ based on non-RTSJ Java virtual machines. In this paper, we will show the requirement, application programming interface, and implementation of this extension library, and discuss its influence on timing.