A Practical Getaway: Applications Of Escape Analysis In Embedded Real-Time Systems

The use of a managed, type-safe language such as Java in real-time and embedded systems offers productivity and, in particular, safety and dependability benefits at a reasonable cost. It has been shown for commodity systems that escape analysis (EA) enables a set of useful optimization, and benefits from the properties of a type-safe language. In this paper, we explore the application of escape analysis in KESO [34], a Java ahead-of-time compiler targeting (deeply) embedded real-time systems. We present specific applications of EA for embedded programs that go beyond the widely known stack-allocation and synchronization optimizations such as extended remote procedure call support for software-isolated applications, automated inference of immutable data or improved upper space and time bounds for worst-case estimations.