A fault-tolerant intelligent robotic control system

This paper describes the concept, design, and features of a fault-tolerant intelligent robotic control system being developed for space and commercial applications that require high dependability. The comprehensive strategy integrates system level hardware/software fault tolerance with task level handling of uncertainties and unexpected events for robotic control. The underlying architecture for system level fault tolerance is the distributed recovery block which protects against application software, system software, hardware, and network failures. Task level fault tolerance provisions are implemented in a knowledge-based system which utilizes advanced automation techniques such as rule-based and model-based reasoning to monitor, diagnose, and recover from unexpected events. The two level design provides tolerance of two or more faults occurring serially at any level of command, control, sensing, or actuation. The potential benefits of such a fault tolerant robotic control system include: (1) a minimized potential for damage to humans, the work site, and the robot itself; (2) continuous operation with a minimum of uncommanded motion in the presence of failures; and (3) more reliable autonomous operation providing increased efficiency in the execution of robotic tasks and decreased demand on human operators for controlling and monitoring the robotic servicing routines

Operating system fault tolerance support for real-time embedded applications

Tese de doutoramento em Electrónica Industrial (ramo de conhecimento em Informática Industrial)Fault tolerance is a means of achieving high dependability for critical and highavailability systems. Despite the efforts to prevent and remove faults during the development of these systems, the application of fault tolerance is usually required because the hardware may fail during system operation and software faults are very hard to eliminate completely. One of the difficulties in implementing fault tolerance techniques is the lack of support from operating systems and middleware. In most fault tolerant projects, the programmer has to develop a fault tolerance implementation for each application. This strong customization makes the fault-tolerant software costly and difficult to implement and maintain. In particular, for small-scale embedded systems, the introduction of fault tolerance techniques may also have impact on their restricted resources, such as processing power and memory size. The purpose of this research is to provide fault tolerance support for real-time applications in small-scale embedded systems. The main approach of this thesis is to develop and integrate a customizable and extendable fault tolerance framework into a real-time operating system, in order to fulfill the needs of a large range of dependable applications. Special attention is taken to allow the coexistence of fault tolerance with real-time constraints. The utilization of the proposed framework features several advantages over ad-hoc implementations, such as simplifying application-level programming and improving the system configurability and maintainability. In addition, this thesis also investigates the application of aspect-oriented techniques to the development of real-time embedded fault-tolerant software. Aspect- Oriented Programming (AOP) is employed to modularize all fault tolerant source code, following the principle of separation of concerns, and to integrate the proposed framework into the operating system. Two case studies are used to evaluate the proposed implementation in terms of performance and resource costs. The results show that the overheads related to the framework application are acceptable and the ones related to the AOP implementation are negligible.Tolerância a falhas é um meio de obter-se alta confiabilidade para sistemas críticos e de elevada disponibilidade. Apesar dos esforços para prevenir e remover falhas durante o desenvolvimento destes sistemas, a aplicação de tolerância a falhas é normalmente necessária, já que o hardware pode falhar durante a operação do sistema e falhas de software são muito difíceis de eliminar completamente. Uma das dificuldades na implementação de técnicas de tolerância a falhas é a falta de suporte por parte dos sistemas operativos e middleware. Na maioria dos projectos tolerantes a falhas, o programador deve desenvolver uma implementação de tolerância a falhas para cada aplicação. Esta elevada adaptação torna o software tolerante a falhas dispendioso e difícil de implementar e manter. Em particular, para sistemas embebidos de pequena escala, a introdução de técnicas de tolerância a falhas pode também ter impacto nos seus restritos recursos, tais como capacidade de processamento e tamanho da memória. O propósito desta tese é prover suporte à tolerância a falhas para aplicações de tempo real em sistemas embebidos de pequena escala. A principal abordagem utilizada nesta tese foi desenvolver e integrar uma framework tolerante a falhas, customizável e extensível, a um sistema operativo de tempo real, a fim de satisfazer às necessidades de uma larga gama de aplicações confiáveis. Especial atenção foi dada para permitir a coexistência de tolerância a falhas com restrições de tempo real. A utilização da framework proposta apresenta diversas vantagens sobre implementações ad-hoc, tais como simplificar a programação a nível da aplicação e melhorar a configurabilidade e a facilidade de manutenção do sistema. Além disto, esta tese também investiga a aplicação de técnicas orientadas a aspectos no desenvolvimento de software tolerante a falhas, embebido e de tempo real. A Programação Orientada a Aspectos (POA) é empregada para segregar em módulos isolados todo o código fonte tolerante a falhas, seguindo o princípio da separação de interesses, e para integrar a framework proposta com o sistema operativo. Dois casos de estudo são utilizados para avaliar a implementação proposta em termos de desempenho e utilização de recursos. Os resultados mostram que os acréscimos de recursos relativos à aplicação da framework são aceitáveis e os relativos à implementação POA são insignificantes

Autonomous Control of Space Reactor Systems

Autonomous and semi-autonomous control is a key element of space reactor design in order to meet the mission requirements of safety, reliability, survivability, and life expectancy. Interrestrial nuclear power plants, human operators are avilable to perform intelligent control functions that are necessary for both normal and abnormal operational conditions

Technology 2002: The Third National Technology Transfer Conference and Exposition, volume 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2002 Conference and Exposition, December 1-3, 1992, Baltimore, MD. Volume 2 features 60 papers presented during 30 concurrent sessions

Design Development Test and Evaluation (DDT and E) Considerations for Safe and Reliable Human Rated Spacecraft Systems

A team directed by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) collected methodologies for how best to develop safe and reliable human rated systems and how to identify the drivers that provide the basis for assessing safety and reliability. The team also identified techniques, methodologies, and best practices to assure that NASA can develop safe and reliable human rated systems. The results are drawn from a wide variety of resources, from experts involved with the space program since its inception to the best-practices espoused in contemporary engineering doctrine. This report focuses on safety and reliability considerations and does not duplicate or update any existing references. Neither does it intend to replace existing standards and policy

Technology 2004, Vol. 2

Proceedings from symposia of the Technology 2004 Conference, November 8-10, 1994, Washington, DC. Volume 2 features papers on computers and software, virtual reality simulation, environmental technology, video and imaging, medical technology and life sciences, robotics and artificial intelligence, and electronics