A Heuristic Approach for Scheduling in Heterogeneous Distributed Embedded Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a heuristic approach for workflow scheduling in heterogeneous distributed embedded system (HDES).A genetic algorithm (GA) and ant colony optimization (ACO) modified with the greedy algorithm introduced to the system contains multiple heterogeneous embedded machines (HEMs) working as a cluster.Users can remotely access and utilize their computational power.The communications on different types of buses are taken into account to find an optimal solution.New meta-heuristic information based on forwarding dependency is proposed to build probability for ACO to generate task priorities.Besides, a greedy algorithm for machine allocation is incorporated to complete task scheduling.Experiments based on random task graphs running in the HEM cluster demonstrate the effectiveness of the modified greedy ant colony optimization algorithm which outperforms the others by 33% more result quality.