REAL-TIME ISSUES OF TRANSPUTERS IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE MOTION CONTROL-SYSTEMS

Transputers have emerged as an attractive technology with which to imp lement high-performance ac drive controllers because of their direct s upport for parallel processing. If transputers are used in such applic ations, there are several real-time issues that have to be addressed i ncluding event response times, scheduling strategies, I/O, and real-ti me kernel performance. This paper describes the implementation of part of a real-time kernel consisting of a multiple event handler and an e fficient scheduler to improve the transputer's real-time performance. In addition to supporting high-performance controller tasks, the real- time kernel implements features such as parameter sampling and user in teraction. The kernel is intended to be a platform to support a highly programmable and configurable controller suitable for a wide range of motion control applications. Test results are presented to show the p erformance of the kernel.