PIERES: A Playground for Network Interrupt Experiments on Real-Time Embedded Systems in the IoT

Abstract

IoT devices have become an integral part of our lives and the industry. Many of these devices run real-time systems or are used as part of them. As these devices receive network packets over IP networks, the network interface informs the CPU about their arrival using interrupts that might preempt critical processes. Therefore, the question arises whether network interrupts pose a threat to the real-timeness of these devices. However, there are few tools to investigate this issue. We present a playground which enables researchers to conduct experiments in the context of network interrupt simulation. The playground comprises different network interface controller implementations, load generators and timing utilities. It forms a flexible and easy to use foundation for future network interrupt research. We conduct two verification experiments and two real world examples. The latter give insight into the impact of the interrupt handling strategy parameters and the influence of different load types on the execution time with respect to these parameters.