Energy-aware design of secure multi-mode real-time embedded systems with FPGA co-processors

Abstract

We approach the emerging area of energy efficient, secure real-time embedded systems design. Many modern embedded systems have to fulfill strict security constraints and are often required to meet stringent deadlines in different operation modes, where the number and nature of active tasks vary (dynamic task sets). In this context, the use of dynamic voltage/frequency scaling (DVFS) techniques and onboard field-programmable gate array (FPGA) co-processors offer new dimensions for energy savings and performance enhancement. We propose a novel design framework that provides the best security protection consuming the minimal energy for all operation modes of a system. Extensive experiments demonstrate the efficiency of our techniques.

MiniTEE—A Lightweight TrustZone-Assisted TEE for Real-Time Systems

“…Security for real-time systems: Security for embedded hardware and software is becoming a main focus of recent works [23,24]. For real-time systems, the emphasis is usually on the trade-off between real-time constraints and security levels [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. Mohan et al [27,28] considered information leakage through storage timing channels using architectural resources (e.g., caches) shared between real-time tasks with different security levels.…”

A Short Review of Security-Aware Techniques in Real-Time Embedded Systems

“…Poudel et al 25 ECU architectures Jiang et al 26 TSHO Zhang et al 27 ESAMA Jiang et al 28 RNAA Jiang et al 29 Genetic algorithm (GA)-based NSGA-II Nicolae et al 30 power. To simultaneously execute the data collection of voltage and current, they developed a special data collection program based on LabVIEW.…”

“…Based on this, energy e±ciency needs to be taken into account when designing security-guaranteed services. Recently, the researchers concentrate on developing security-aware energy-e±cient task scheduling mechanisms [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] that cannot only promote the system safety performance but also improve the system energy e±ciency. The third category to realize a secure system is investigating the safety issues in speci¯c applications such as cyber-physical systems (CPSs), [31][32][33] automotive systems, [34][35][36][37] clusters, [38][39][40] grids, [41][42][43] etc.…”