This paper presents a comprehensive design methodology for guaranteeing end-to-end requirements of real-time systems. Applications are structured as a set of process components connected by asynchronous channels, in which the endpoints are the system's external inputs and outputs. Timing constraints are then postulated between these inputs and outputs; they express properties such as end-to-end propagation delay, temporal input-sampling correlation, and allowable separation times between updated output values.

The automated design method works as follows: First the end-to-end requirements are transformed into a set of intermediate rate constraints on the tasks, and new tasks are created to correlate related inputs. The intermediate constraints are then solved by an optimization algorithm, whose objective is to minimize CPU utilization. If the algorithm fails, a restructuring tool attempts to eliminate bottlenecks by transforming the application, which is then re-submitted into the assignment algorithm. The final result is a schedulable set of fully periodic tasks, which collaboratively maintain the end-to-end constraints. (Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-94-58)