Dynamics analysis and integrated design of real-time control systems

Real-time control systems are widely deployed in many applications. Theory and practice for the design and deployment of real-time control systems have evolved significantly. From the design perspective, control strategy development has been the focus of the research in the control community. In order to develop good control strategies, process modelling and analysis have been investigated for decades, and stability analysis and model-based control have been heavily studied in the literature. From the implementation perspective, real-time control systems require timeliness and predictable timing behaviour in addition to logical correctness, and a real-time control system may behave very differently with different software implementations of the control strategies on a digital controller, which typically has limited computing resources. Most current research activities on software implementations concentrate on various scheduling methodologies to ensure the schedulability of multiple control tasks in constrained environments. Recently, more and more real-time control systems are implemented over data networks, leading to increasing interest worldwide in the design and implementation of networked control systems (NCS). Major research activities in NCS include control-oriented and scheduling-oriented investigations. In spite of significant progress in the research and development of real-time control systems, major difficulties exist in the state of the art. A key issue is the lack of integrated design for control development and its software implementation. For control design, the model-based control technique, the current focus of control research, does not work when a good process model is not available or is too complicated for control design. For control implementation on digital controllers running multiple tasks, the system schedulability is essential but is not enough; the ultimate objective of satisfactory quality-of-control (QoC) performance has not been addressed directly. For networked control, the majority of the control-oriented investigations are based on two unrealistic assumptions about the network induced delay. The scheduling-oriented research focuses on schedulability and does not directly link to the overall QoC of the system. General solutions with direct QoC consideration from the network perspective to the challenging problems of network delay and packet dropout in NCS have not been found in the literature. This thesis addresses the design and implementation of real-time control systems with regard to dynamics analysis and integrated design. Three related areas have been investigated, namely control development for controllers, control implementation and scheduling on controllers, and real-time control in networked environments. Seven research problems are identified from these areas for investigation in this thesis, and accordingly seven major contributions have been claimed. Timing behaviour, quality of control, and integrated design for real-time control systems are highlighted throughout this thesis. In control design, a model-free control technique, pattern predictive control, is developed for complex reactive distillation processes. Alleviating the requirement of accurate process models, the developed control technique integrates pattern recognition, fuzzy logic, non-linear transformation, and predictive control into a unified framework to solve complex problems. Characterising the QoC indirectly with control latency and jitter, scheduling strategies for multiple control tasks are proposed to minimise the latency and/or jitter. Also, a hierarchical, QoC driven, and event-triggering feedback scheduling architecture is developed with plug-ins of either the earliest-deadline-first or fixed priority scheduling. Linking to the QoC directly, the architecture minimises the use of computing resources without sacrifice of the system QoC. It considers the control requirements, but does not rely on the control design. For real-time NCS, the dynamics of the network delay are analysed first, and the nonuniform distribution and multi-fractal nature of the delay are revealed. These results do not support two fundamental assumptions used in existing NCS literature. Then, considering the control requirements, solutions are provided to the challenging NCS problems from the network perspective. To compensate for the network delay, a real-time queuing protocol is developed to smooth out the time-varying delay and thus to achieve more predictable behaviour of packet transmissions. For control packet dropout, simple yet effective compensators are proposed. Finally, combining the queuing protocol, the packet loss compensation, the configuration of the worst-case communication delay, and the control design, an integrated design framework is developed for real-time NCS. With this framework, the network delay is limited to within a single control period, leading to simplified system analysis and improved QoC

Une méthode globale pour la vérification d'exigences temps réel (application à l'avionique modulaire intégrée)

Dans le domaine de l aéronautique, les systèmes embarqués ont fait leur apparition durant les années 60, lorsque les équipements analogiques ont commencé à être remplacés par leurs équivalents numériques. Dès lors, l engouement suscité par les progrès de l informatique fut tel que de plus en plus de fonctionnalités ont été numérisées. L accroissement permanent de la complexité des systèmes a conduit à la définition d une architecture appelée Avionique Modulaire Intégrée (IMA pour Integrated Modular Avionics). Cette architecture se distingue des architectures antérieures, car elle est fondée sur des standards (ARINC 653 et ARINC 664 partie 7) permettant le partage des ressources de calcul et de communication entre les différentes fonctions avioniques. Ce type d architecture est appliqué aussi bien dans le domaine civil avec le Boeing B777 et l Airbus A380, que dans le domaine militaire avec le Rafale ou encore l A400M. Pour des raisons de sûreté, le comportement temporel d un système s appuyant sur une architecture IMA doit être prévisible. Ce besoin se traduit par un ensemble d exigences temps réel que doit satisfaire le système. Le problème exploré dans cette thèse concerne la vérification d exigences temps réel dans les systèmes IMA. Ces exigences s articulent autour de chaînes fonctionnelles, qui sont des séquences de fonctions. Une exigence spécifie alors une borne acceptable (minimale ou maximale) pour une propriété temporelle d une ou plusieurs chaînes fonctionnelles. Nous avons identifié trois catégories d exigences temps réel, que nous considérons pertinentes vis-à-vis des systèmes étudiés. Il s agit des exigences de latence, de fraîcheur et de cohérence. Nous proposons une modélisation des systèmes IMA, et des exigences qu ils doivent satisfaire, dans le formalisme du tagged signal model. Nous montrons alors comment, à partir de ce modèle, nous pouvons générer pour chaque exigence un programme linéaire mixte, c est-à-dire contenant à la fois des variables entières et réelles, dont la solution optimale permet de vérifier la satisfaction de l exigenceEmbedded systems appeared in aeronautics during the 60 s, when the process of replacing analog devices by their digital counterpart started. From that time, the broad thrust of computer science advances make it possible to digitize more and more avionics functionalities. The continual increase of the complexity of these systems led to the definition of a new architecture called Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA). This architecture stands apart from previous architecture because it is based on standards (ARINC 653 and ARINC 664 part 7) which allow the sharing of computation and communication resources among avionics functions. This architecture is implemented in civil aircrafts, with Boeing B777 and Airbus A380, and in military aircrafts, with Rafale or A400M. For safety reason, the temporal behaviour of such a system must be predictable, which is expressed with a set real-time requirements. A real-time requirement specifies an upper or lower bound of a temporal property of one or several functional chains. A functional chain is a sequence of functions. In this thesis, we explore the verification of real-time requirements in IMA systems. We have identified three real-time requirements relevant to our problem : latency, freshness and consistency. We propose a model of IMA systems, and the requirements they must meet, based on the tagged signal model. Then we derive from this model, for each requirement, a mixed integer linear program whose optimal solution allows us to verify the requirementTOULOUSE-INP (315552154) / SudocSudocFranceF

Une méthode globale pour la vérification d’exigences temps réel : application à l’avionique modulaire intégrée

Dans le domaine de l’aéronautique, les systèmes embarqués ont fait leur apparition durant les années 60, lorsque les équipements analogiques ont commencé à être remplacés par leurs équivalents numériques. Dès lors, l’engouement suscité par les progrès de l’informatique fut tel que de plus en plus de fonctionnalités ont été numérisées. L’accroissement permanent de la complexité des systèmes a conduit à la définition d’une architecture appelée Avionique Modulaire Intégrée (IMA pour Integrated Modular Avionics). Cette architecture se distingue des architectures antérieures, car elle est fondée sur des standards (ARINC 653 et ARINC 664 partie 7) permettant le partage des ressources de calcul et de communication entre les différentes fonctions avioniques. Ce type d’architecture est appliqué aussi bien dans le domaine civil avec le Boeing B777 et l’Airbus A380, que dans le domaine militaire avec le Rafale ou encore l’A400M. Pour des raisons de sûreté, le comportement temporel d’un système s’appuyant sur une architecture IMA doit être prévisible. Ce besoin se traduit par un ensemble d’exigences temps réel que doit satisfaire le système. Le problème exploré dans cette thèse concerne la vérification d’exigences temps réel dans les systèmes IMA. Ces exigences s’articulent autour de chaînes fonctionnelles, qui sont des séquences de fonctions. Une exigence spécifie alors une borne acceptable (minimale ou maximale) pour une propriété temporelle d’une ou plusieurs chaînes fonctionnelles. Nous avons identifié trois catégories d’exigences temps réel, que nous considérons pertinentes vis-à-vis des systèmes étudiés. Il s’agit des exigences de latence, de fraîcheur et de cohérence. Nous proposons une modélisation des systèmes IMA, et des exigences qu’ils doivent satisfaire, dans le formalisme du tagged signal model. Nous montrons alors comment, à partir de ce modèle, nous pouvons générer pour chaque exigence un programme linéaire mixte, c’est-à-dire contenant à la fois des variables entières et réelles, dont la solution optimale permet de vérifier la satisfaction de l’exigence. ABSTRACT : Embedded systems appeared in aeronautics during the 60’s, when the process of replacing analog devices by their digital counterpart started. From that time, the broad thrust of computer science advances make it possible to digitize more and more avionics functionalities. The continual increase of the complexity of these systems led to the definition of a new architecture called Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA). This architecture stands apart from previous architecture because it is based on standards (ARINC 653 and ARINC 664 part 7) which allow the sharing of computation and communication resources among avionics functions. This architecture is implemented in civil aircrafts, with Boeing B777 and Airbus A380, and in military aircrafts, with Rafale or A400M. For safety reason, the temporal behaviour of such a system must be predictable, which is expressed with a set real-time requirements. A real-time requirement specifies an upper or lower bound of a temporal property of one or several functional chains. A functional chain is a sequence of functions. In this thesis, we explore the verification of real-time requirements in IMA systems. We have identified three real-time requirements relevant to our problem : latency, freshness and consistency. We propose a model of IMA systems, and the requirements they must meet, based on the tagged signal model. Then we derive from this model, for each requirement, a mixed integer linear program whose optimal solution allows us to verify the requirement