A scatter search algorithm for real-time scheduling with timing, precedence and exclusion constraints

Tasks scheduling is one of the most important challenges in embedded hard-real-time systems. The problem is known to be NP-hard and exhaustive search algorithms have no significant benefit in large-scale context. This paper proposes a scatter search-based approach for mono-processor systems with timing, precedence and exclusion constraints with no pre-emption. An empirical study is undertaken and comparison is done with results of other algorithms.