Group project: The goal of this component is to give you the
opportunity to get hands-on experience with a concrete problem related to
real-time and fault-tolerant computing. The project will be performed in
teams of 1-3 students. Each team will prepare a project proposal in
consultation with the lecturer. Further, the teams will be responsible for
frequent progress reports, demos, a term paper, and a final presentation.
The projects can cover a variety of problems, ranging from real-time
operating systems, to real-time scheduling and communication, to robotics
and mobile computing systems. The students will have access to an 8-node
dedicated Linux/RTLinux cluster and other hardware/software can be provided
upon request (mobile equipment, sensors, etc.). The 50% achievable in this
component are split up as follows: proposal (5%), progress report (5%),
draft of term paper (5%), peer review process (5%),
final paper and demo of software (25%), project
presentation (5%).
Homework assignments: The homework assignments will be essential
to practice the principles and concepts discussed in the lectures. There will
be 8-10 such homeworks with short deadlines (typically one week) and they are
due by the time class starts on the day specified in the assignments. For
each day after the due date, 15% are lost, however, after 4 days, no credit
is given. Some assignments may include small programming tasks.