Experimental Evaluation of the Linux RT Patch for Real-Time Applications

The possibility of using Linux as underlying operating system for real-time applications has received considerable attention by industry due to several definite advantages, such as the lack of royalties and the availability of rich and programmer-friendly software development frameworks. In addition, the real-time capabilities of the Linux kernel have recently been enhanced considerably through the development of the Linux RT Patch. This paper evaluates the real-time characteristics of the Linux kernel with the RT Patch installed, in order to help the designer understand what sort of real-time performance is to be expected, and decide whether it is adequate or not for a given class of applications.