Abstract
An outline of a syllabus for the education of real-time systems engineers is given. This comprises the treatment of basic concepts, real-time software engineering and programming in high-level real-time languages, real-time operating systems with special emphasis to some topics like task scheduling, hardware architectures and especially distributed automation structures, process interfacing, system reliability and fault-tolerance, and finally integrated project development support systems. Accompanying course materials and laboratory work are outlined and suggestions for establishing a laboratory with very advanced, but low-cost, hardware and software are provided. It is described how the curriculum can be extended into a second semester and areas for possible graduate research are listed. The paper closes with considerations about a suitable selection of a high-level real-time language and a supporting operating system for teaching purposes.Â
