CONTREX: Design of embedded mixed-criticality CONTRol systems under consideration of EXtra-functional properties

Abstract

The increasing processing power of today's HW/SW platforms leads to the integration of more and more functions in a single device. Additional design challenges arise when these functions share computing resources and belong to different criticality levels. CONTREX complements current activities in the area of predictable computing platforms and segregation mechanisms with techniques to consider the extra-functional properties, i.e., timing constraints, power, and temperature. CONTREX enables energy efficient and cost aware design through analysis and optimization of these properties with regard to application demands at different criticality levels. This article presents an overview of the CONTREX European project, its main innovative technology (extension of a model based design approach, functional and extra-functional analysis with executable models and run-time management) and the final results of three industrial use-cases from different domain (avionics, automotive and telecommunication)

Controller area network reliability: overview of design challenges and safety related perspectives of future transportation systems

“…For former control systems, the algorithmic design and the implementation phase have been widely independent. In case of CPSs, the optimal HW/SW implementation has been largely studied [17]. The CPS functional correctness, the resource planning, the HW concurrency and the energy efficient/cost‐aware design are other main aspects, which have been extensively studied in the literature [23, 24].…”

“…Testing/model checking techniques have been prescribed to monitor automotive operating systems, which are the bottom line of IVNCS control SW [16]. HW/SW certification frameworks have been developed to tackle IVNCS cost‐aware design [17]. The establishment of data stream management systems has guaranteed a reliable message exchange inside IVNCSs [18].…”

The AXIOM platform for next-generation cyber physical systems

“…We refer readers to the general survey on CPS [37] for more information. There are many similar/relevant completed (such as CONTREX [10] , MultiPARTES [13] , ASAM [38] , SCUBA [39] ) and on-going European projects (such as DREAMS [11] , EM C 2 [12] ) which are focused on many different aspects (mostly focused on the mixed-criticality application domain) of CPS. We are discussing few of them which are more relevant to our works.…”

“…The AXIOM project (Agile, eXtensible, fast I/O Module) provides a general framework focusing on easily mapping applications to multi-board processing platforms [8,9] . Unlike other research effort s (such as CONTREX [10] , DREAMS [11] , EM C 2 [12] , MultiPARTES [13] ) that focus mainly on the mixed-criticality appli- cations, AXIOM provides a generic platform with its complete application development suite. Despite the existence of many FPGAbased boards, to the best of our knowledge our approach is the first that combines all the features (especially parallel programmability, connectivity and scalability).…”

Worst-Case Energy Consumption: A New Challenge for Battery-Powered Critical Devices

“…The rise of battery-powered and power-constrained critical devices makes energy a first-class citizen, as relevant as functional and timing requirements. At the V&V level, evidence must be provided that power-control techniques do not jeopardize the safe operation of the device [23]. This relates to assessing the effect of those techniques on the timing of the software to prevent any overruns and providing evidence that they are triggered/deactivated in a controlled manner [10].…”