The RTES project: BTeV, and beyond

The Real Time Embedded Systems (RTES) project was created to study the design and implementation of high-performance, heterogeneous, and fault-adaptive real time embedded systems. The driving application for this research was the proposed BTeV high energy physics experiment, which called for large farms of embedded computational elements (DSPs), as well as a large farm of conventional high-performance processors to implement its Level 1 and Level 2/3 triggers. At the time of BTeV's termination early in 2005, the RTES project was within days of completing a prototype implementation for providing a reliable and fault-adaptive infrastructure to the L2/3 farm; a prototype for the L1 farm had been completed in 2003. This paper documents the conclusion of the RTES focus on BTeV, and provides an evaluation of the applicability of the RTES concepts to other systems.