2007 Real-time Innovation Awards

IBM is pleased to announce the 2007 Real-time Innovation Awards program, an international award competition designed to encourage the use of open source and open standards-based tools for academic curricula and research.The development of real-time Linux and real-time Java has made it possible, for the first time, to create complex, real-time systems using a widely-available standard operating system and a safe, high-level, language that includes garbage collection. IBM has produced leading technology in this area that is in use in the telecommunications, defense, and finance sectors:

• IBM WebSphere Real Time: A Java virtual machine with real-time garbage collection, ahead-of-time compilation, and a complete implementation of the RTSJ standard, will be made available to all award recipients.
• Real-time Linux:  Supports real-time priorities, predictable context switch latencies, high resolution timing services, and more. Developed in collaboration with the open source community and available as open source.
• IBM TuningFork Visualization Tool for Real-time Systems: Developed by IBM Research is available to download at no charge from alphaWorks. It is an Eclipse-based real-time visualization system that provides microsecond-level trace analysis of real-time Java, Linux, and user applications in C++ and Java.
  

There still are many opportunities to create innovative real-time applications, tools, and middleware or to improve the underlying operating system. And, most important to the academic community, the potential for this technology to simplify education has not yet been realized.

With this in mind, we are seeking proposals in (but not limited to) the areas of:

• Java-based middleware for real-time systems
• Real-time extensions to Linux (for example, for scheduling, networking and I/O)
• Analysis of Java for real-time properties, such as worst-case execution time
• Tooling for the creation of compositional real-time Java and Linux applications
  
• Creation of innovative Java-based real-time applications for the open-source community
• Courseware supporting the use of real-time Java in teaching (for instance, of control theory)

Awards are valued in the range of US $10,000 to $25,000. To qualify for these internationally competitive awards, the submitter must be a full-time faculty member at an accredited college or university which offers Baccalaureate, Master's or Doctoral programs.

Congratulations to our 2007 Real Time Innovation Award recipients!