Non-Real-Time Hardware Assisted Computer System Simulation

To present a consistent and deterministic view of time to virtual machines, ARiA will develop the Relative Real-Time Mechanism (RRTM). RRTM will work cooperatively with existing virtualization technologies such as Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), extending them to support simulations of real-time and latency-sensitive systems. Relative to the virtual machine, it will be operating in a real-time environment, even when running on a non-real-time platform, such as those commonly found on commodity development platforms running a general-purpose operating system such as Linux. This will allow real-time and latency-sensitive dynamics to be simulated and tested by commodity systems to a higher degree of accuracy, without the use of any other dedicated physical platform. RRTM will extend KVM by implementing mechanisms to control the amount of instructions that can be run by the virtualization technology at each call. Thus, the amount of instructions that were executed, and by extension, the amount of time that has passed for the virtual system, can be accurately measured. Through these mechanisms, the non-deterministic elements that can arise through virtualization can be eliminated and the time step counter (TSC) of the virtual system can more accurately be updated, presenting a consistent, controllable, and deterministic presentation of time to the virtual system. Approved for Public Release |21-MDA-10789 (21 Apr 21)