Yu-Chu Tian (editor) - Handbook of Real-Time Computing

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Real-time computing correlates the performance of a computer, embedded system, or communication network together with time. It focuses on the design of application systems that must complete a task or return a response within a certain time frame, which is known as deadline. Depending on the application, the deadline requirement could range from nanosecond in computer network communications to millisecond in medical diagnosis or even seconds or minutes in many industrial control systems. Missing the deadline will violate the system requirements, while completing a task much earlier than the deadline may also deteriorate the system performance. Fast responses and/or precise timing control with or without fast response requirements are typical features of real-time computing. This can be interpreted as completing computing tasks at right times in real-time computing.

Real-time computing is widely used in various applications. In industrial systems such as power plants and power transmission and distribution networks, real-time monitoring and control over the whole communication networked systems become essential for system stability, performance, safety, and reliability. In our daily life, with the increasing demand on high-speed communication and network activities, real-time computing has become one of the key technologies to provide ultimate real-time networked services.

The Handbook of Real-Time Computing aims to summarize the state of the art of real-time computing. It is organized into five sections, which cover five selected aspects of real-time computing from theory to applications. The five sections are

It has been a long journey to present this five-section handbook to readers. We would like to acknowledge all section editors and authors for their creative contributions, without which the production of this handbook would have not been possible. We are grateful to Springers MRW (Major Reference Works) publisher Mr. Stephen Yeung, who initiated this handbook project and demonstrated his enthusiasm, professionalism, support, and patience throughout the process of the project. Last but not the least, special thanks go to Springers project coordinators (Books), Ms. Rekha Sukumar, Ms. Juby George, Meena Thiagarajan, Akshara P P, Nivedita Baroi, and Mr. Ramesh Nath Premnath, who coordinated the project at different times leading to the production of the handbook. It has been an enjoyable experience to work with these professionals and Springer.

Let us look forward to further development and evolution of new theories and technologies of real-time computing.