A Real-time Extension to the Android Platform

Android belongs to the leading operating systems for mobile devices, e.g. smartphones or tablets. The availability of Android's source code under general public license allows interesting developments and useful modifications of the platform for third parties, like the integration of real-time support. This paper presents an extension of Android improving its real-time capabilities, without loss of original Android functionality and compatibility to existing applications. In our approach we apply the RT_PREEMPT patch to the Linux kernel, modify essential Android components like the Dalvik virtual machine and introduce a new real-time interface for Android developers. The resulting Android system supports applications with real-time requirements, which can be implemented in the same way as non-real-time applications.