Scoped, coarse-grain memory management and the RTSJ scoped memory model in the development of real-time applications

As real-time systems become increasingly large and complex, forcing a static memory model becomes untenable. The challenge is to provide a memory model that guarantees tightly bounded time and memory requirements without overburdening the developer with memory concerns. This paper revisits the memory management problem in real-time systems. We introduce a simple model that describes memory usage in a program composed of coarse-grain entities and evaluate a minimal scoped model in this context. We thereby conclude that a scoped, coarse-grain approach similar to that adopted by the Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ) is attractive when targeting systems with tight timing constraints.