Scheduling and Communication Synthesis for Distributed Real-Time Systems

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS ARE now omnipresent: from cellular phones to pagers, from microwave ovens to PDAs, almost all the devices we use are controlled by embedded systems. Many embedded systems have to fulfill strict requirements in terms of performance and cost efficiency. Emerging designs are usually based on heterogeneous architectures that integrate multiple programmable processors and dedicated hardware components. New tools which extend design automation to system level have to support the integrated design of both the hardware and software components of such systems. This thesis concentrates on aspects of scheduling and communication for embedded real-time systems. Special emphasis has been placed on the impact of the communication infrastructure and protocol on the overall system performance. The scheduling and communication strategies proposed are based on an abstract graph representation which captures, at process level, both the dataflow and the flow of control. We have considere..

Foundations for Safety-Critical on-Demand Medical Systems

In current medical practice, therapy is delivered in critical care environments (e.g., the ICU) by clinicians who manually coordinate sets of medical devices: The clinicians will monitor patient vital signs and then reconfigure devices (e.g., infusion pumps) as is needed. Unfortunately, the current state of practice is both burdensome on clinicians and error prone. Recently, clinicians have been speculating whether medical devices supporting ``plug & play interoperability\u27\u27 would make it easier to automate current medical workflows and thereby reduce medical errors, reduce costs, and reduce the burden on overworked clinicians. This type of plug & play interoperability would allow clinicians to attach devices to a local network and then run software applications to create a new medical system ``on-demand\u27\u27 which automates clinical workflows by automatically coordinating those devices via the network. Plug & play devices would let the clinicians build new medical systems compositionally. Unfortunately, safety is not considered a compositional property in general. For example, two independently ``safe\u27\u27 devices may interact in unsafe ways. Indeed, even the definition of ``safe\u27\u27 may differ between two device types. In this dissertation we propose a framework and define some conditions that permit reasoning about the safety of plug & play medical systems. The framework includes a logical formalism that permits formal reasoning about the safety of many device combinations at once, as well as a platform that actively prevents unintended timing interactions between devices or applications via a shared resource such as a network or CPU. We describe the various pieces of the framework, report some experimental results, and show how the pieces work together to enable the safety assessment of plug & play medical systems via a two case-studies

Effective And Efficient Preemption Placement For Cache Overhead Minimization In Hard Real-Time Systems

Schedulability analysis for real-time systems has been the subject of prominent research over the past several decades. One of the key foundations of schedulability analysis is an accurate worst case execution time (WCET) for each task. In preemption based real-time systems, the CRPD can represent a significant component (up to 44% as documented in research literature) of variability to overall task WCET. Several methods have been employed to calculate CRPD with significant levels of pessimism that may result in a task set erroneously declared as non-schedulable. Furthermore, they do not take into account that CRPD cost is inherently a function of where preemptions actually occur. Our approach for computing CRPD via loaded cache blocks (LCBs) is more accurate in the sense that cache state reflects which cache blocks and the specific program locations where they are reloaded. Limited preemption models attempt to minimize preemption overhead (CRPD) by reducing the number of allowed preemptions and/or allowing preemption at program locations where the CRPD effect is minimized. These algorithms rely heavily on accurate CRPD measurements or estimation models in order to identify an optimal set of preemption points. Our approach improves the effectiveness of limited optimal preemption point placement algorithms by calculating the LCBs for each pair of adjacent preemptions to more accurately model task WCET and maximize schedulability as compared to existing preemption point placement approaches. We utilize dynamic programming technique to develop an optimal preemption point placement algorithm. Lastly, we will demonstrate, using a case study, improved task set schedulability and optimal preemption point placement via our new LCB characterization. We propose a new CRPD metric, called loaded cache blocks (LCB) which accurately characterizes the CRPD a real-time task may be subjected to due to the preemptive execution of higher priority tasks. We show how to integrate our new LCB metric into our newly developed algorithms that automatically place preemption points supporting linear control flow graphs (CFGs) for limited preemption scheduling applications. We extend the derivation of loaded cache blocks (LCB), that was proposed for linear control flow graphs (CFGs) to conditional CFGs. We show how to integrate our revised LCB metric into our newly developed algorithms that automatically place preemption points supporting conditional control flow graphs (CFGs) for limited preemption scheduling applications. For future work, we will verify the correctness of our framework through other measurable physical and hardware constraints. Also, we plan to complete our work on developing a generalized framework that can be seamlessly integrated into real-time schedulability analysis

Schedulability analysis and optimization of time-partitioned distributed real-time systems

RESUMEN: La creciente complejidad de los sistemas de control modernos lleva a muchas empresas a tener que re-dimensionar o re-diseñar sus soluciones para adecuarlas a nuevas funcionalidades y requisitos. Un caso paradigmático de esta situación se ha dado en el sector ferroviario, donde la implementación de las aplicaciones de señalización se ha llevado a cabo empleando técnicas tradicionales que, si bien ahora mismo cumplen con los requisitos básicos, su rendimiento temporal y escalabilidad funcional son sustancialmente mejorables. A partir de las soluciones propuestas en esta tesis, además de contribuir a la validación de sistemas que requieren certificación de seguridad funcional, también se creará la tecnología base de análisis de planificabilidad y optimización de sistemas de tiempo real distribuidos generales y también basados en particionado temporal, que podrá ser aplicada en distintos entornos en los que los sistemas ciberfísicos juegan un rol clave, por ejemplo en aplicaciones de Industria 4.0, en los que pueden presentarse problemas similares en el futuro.ABSTRACT:he increasing complexity of modern control systems leads many companies to have to resize or redesign their solutions to adapt them to new functionalities and requirements. A paradigmatic case of this situation has occurred in the railway sector, where the implementation of signaling applications has been carried out using traditional techniques that, although they currently meet the basic requirements, their time performance and functional scalability can be substantially improved. From the solutions proposed in this thesis, besides contributing to the assessment of systems that require functional safety certification, the base technology for schedulability analysis and optimization of general as well as time-partitioned distributed real-time systems will be derived, which can be applied in different environments where cyber-physical systems play a key role, for example in Industry 4.0 applications, where similar problems may arise in the future

Computer Aided Verification

The open access two-volume set LNCS 11561 and 11562 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2019, held in New York City, USA, in July 2019. The 52 full papers presented together with 13 tool papers and 2 case studies, were carefully reviewed and selected from 258 submissions. The papers were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: automata and timed systems; security and hyperproperties; synthesis; model checking; cyber-physical systems and machine learning; probabilistic systems, runtime techniques; dynamical, hybrid, and reactive systems; Part II: logics, decision procedures; and solvers; numerical programs; verification; distributed systems and networks; verification and invariants; and concurrency

Scheduling Mixed-Criticality Real-Time Systems

This dissertation addresses the following question to the design of scheduling policies and resource allocation mechanisms in contemporary embedded systems that are implemented on integrated computing platforms: in a multitasking system where it is hard to estimate a task's worst-case execution time, how do we assign task priorities so that 1) the safety-critical tasks are asserted to be completed within a specified length of time, and 2) the non-critical tasks are also guaranteed to be completed within a predictable length of time if no task is actually consuming time at the worst case? This dissertation tries to answer this question based on the mixed-criticality real-time system model, which defines multiple worst-case execution scenarios, and demands a scheduling policy to provide provable timing guarantees to each level of critical tasks with respect to each type of scenario. Two scheduling algorithms are proposed to serve this model. The OCBP algorithm is aimed at discrete one-shot tasks with an arbitrary number of criticality levels. The EDF-VD algorithm is aimed at recurrent tasks with two criticality levels (safety-critical and non-critical). Both algorithms are proved to optimally minimize the percentage of computational resource waste within two criticality levels. More in-depth investigations to the relationship among the computational resource requirement of different criticality levels are also provided for both algorithms.Doctor of Philosoph

Determinism Enhancement and Reliability Assessment in Safety Critical AFDX Networks

RÉSUMÉ AFDX est une technologie basée sur Ethernet, qui a été développée pour répondre aux défis qui découlent du nombre croissant d’applications qui transmettent des données de criticité variable dans les systèmes modernes d’avionique modulaire intégrée (Integrated Modular Avionics). Cette technologie de sécurité critique a été notamment normalisée dans la partie 7 de la norme ARINC 664, dont le but est de définir un réseau déterministe fournissant des garanties de performance prévisibles. En particulier, AFDX est composé de deux réseaux redondants, qui fournissent la haute fiabilité requise pour assurer son déterminisme. Le déterminisme de AFDX est principalement réalisé par le concept de liens virtuels (Virtual Links), qui définit une connexion unidirectionnelle logique entre les points terminaux (End Systems). Pour les liens virtuels, les limites supérieures des délais de bout en bout peuvent être obtenues en utilisant des approches comme calcul réseau, mieux connu sous l’appellation Network Calculus. Cependant, il a été prouvé que ces limites supérieures sont pessimistes dans de nombreux cas, ce qui peut conduire à une utilisation inefficace des ressources et augmenter la complexité de la conception du réseau. En outre, en raison de l’asynchronisme de leur fonctionnement, il existe plusieurs sources de non-déterminisme dans les réseaux AFDX. Ceci introduit un problème en lien avec la détection des défauts en temps réel. En outre, même si un mécanisme de gestion de la redondance est utilisé pour améliorer la fiabilité des réseaux AFDX, il y a un risque potentiel souligné dans la partie 7 de la norme ARINC 664. La situation citée peut causer une panne en dépit des transmissions redondantes dans certains cas particuliers. Par conséquent, l’objectif de cette thèse est d’améliorer la performance et la fiabilité des réseaux AFDX. Tout d’abord, un mécanisme fondé sur l’insertion de trames est proposé pour renforcer le déterminisme de l’arrivée des trames au sein des réseaux AFDX. Parce que la charge du réseau et la bande passante moyenne utilisée augmente due à l’insertion de trames, une stratégie d’agrégation des Sub-Virtual Links est introduite et formulée comme un problème d’optimisation multi-objectif. En outre, trois algorithmes ont été développés pour résoudre le problème d’optimisation multi-objectif correspondant. Ensuite, une approche est introduite pour incorporer l’analyse de la performance dans l’évaluation de la fiabilité en considérant les violations des délais comme des pannes.----------ABSTRACT AFDX is an Ethernet-based technology that has been developed to meet the challenges due to the growing number of data-intensive applications in modern Integrated Modular Avionics systems. This safety critical technology has been standardized in ARINC 664 Part 7, whose purpose is to define a deterministic network by providing predictable performance guarantees. In particular, AFDX is composed of two redundant networks, which provide the determinism required to obtain the desired high reliability. The determinism of AFDX is mainly achieved by the concept of Virtual Link, which defines a logical unidirectional connection from one source End System to one or more destination End Systems. For Virtual Links, the end-to-end delay upper bounds can be obtained by using the Network Calculus. However, it has been proved that such upper bounds are pessimistic in many cases, which may lead to an inefficient use of resources and aggravate network design complexity. Besides, due to asynchronism, there exists a source of non-determinism in AFDX networks, namely frame arrival uncertainty in a destination End System. This issue introduces a problem in terms of real-time fault detection. Furthermore, although a redundancy management mechanism is employed to enhance the reliability of AFDX networks, there still exist potential risks as pointed out in ARINC 664 Part 7, which may fail redundant transmissions in some special cases. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to improve the performance and the reliability of AFDX networks. First, a mechanism based on frame insertion is proposed to enhance the determinism of frame arrival within AFDX networks. As the network load and the average bandwidth used by a Virtual Link increase due to frame insertion, a Sub-Virtual Link aggregation strategy, formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem, is introduced. In addition, three algorithms have been developed to solve the corresponding multi-objective optimization problem. Next, an approach is introduced to incorporate performance analysis into reliability assessment by considering delay violations as failures. This allowed deriving tighter probabilistic upper bounds for Virtual Links that could be applied in AFDX network certification. In order to conduct the necessary reliability analysis, the well-known Fault-Tree Analysis technique is employed and Stochastic Network Calculus is applied to compute the upper bounds with various probability limits