A NETWORK PROCESSING NODE FOR LIGHT UNMANNED AIRCRAFT

Over the last decade, research into unmanned and autonomous vehicles has greatly increased. With applications ranging from science and exploration to humanitarian and military efforts, the rising need for autonomous vehicles demands constant innovation and growth. The Intelligent Dependable Embedded Architectures (IDEA) lab at the University of Kentucky is continually launching research oriented programs [1]. A few key projects focus on the development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Through this research, at the University of Kentucky, the need to develop a reliable, lightweight, node based hardware for use in light UAVs and other unmanned and autonomous vehicles became apparent. This paper addresses the design and implementation of a network processing node for light UAVs. This system utilizes a Controller Area Network (CAN) noise tolerant communications bus, a low power ZigBee Wireless Network for expanded inner plane communications and Silicon Laboratories C8051F041 microcontrollers to provide the necessary inputs/output and data processing. The final result will be a flight ready light UAV featuring distributed processing nodes to handle the servo communications and controls

Digital System Design - Use of Microcontroller

Embedded systems are today, widely deployed in just about every piece of machinery from toasters to spacecraft. Embedded system designers face many challenges. They are asked to produce increasingly complex systems using the latest technologies, but these technologies are changing faster than ever. They are asked to produce better quality designs with a shorter time-to-market. They are asked to implement increasingly complex functionality but more importantly to satisfy numerous other constraints. To achieve the current goals of design, the designer must be aware with such design constraints and more importantly, the factors that have a direct effect on them.One of the challenges facing embedded system designers is the selection of the optimum processor for the application in hand; single-purpose, general-purpose or application specific. Microcontrollers are one member of the family of the application specific processors.The book concentrates on the use of microcontroller as the embedded system?s processor, and how to use it in many embedded system applications. The book covers both the hardware and software aspects needed to design using microcontroller.The book is ideal for undergraduate students and also the engineers that are working in the field of digital system design.Contents• Preface;• Process design metrics;• A systems approach to digital system design;• Introduction to microcontrollers and microprocessors;• Instructions and Instruction sets;• Machine language and assembly language;• System memory; Timers, counters and watchdog timer;• Interfacing to local devices / peripherals;• Analogue data and the analogue I/O subsystem;• Multiprocessor communications;• Serial Communications and Network-based interfaces

Digital System Design - Use of Microcontroller

Embedded systems are today, widely deployed in just about every piece of machinery from toasters to spacecraft. Embedded system designers face many challenges. They are asked to produce increasingly complex systems using the latest technologies, but these technologies are changing faster than ever. They are asked to produce better quality designs with a shorter time-to-market. They are asked to implement increasingly complex functionality but more importantly to satisfy numerous other constraints. To achieve the current goals of design, the designer must be aware with such design constraints and more importantly, the factors that have a direct effect on them.One of the challenges facing embedded system designers is the selection of the optimum processor for the application in hand; single-purpose, general-purpose or application specific. Microcontrollers are one member of the family of the application specific processors.The book concentrates on the use of microcontroller as the embedded system?s processor, and how to use it in many embedded system applications. The book covers both the hardware and software aspects needed to design using microcontroller.The book is ideal for undergraduate students and also the engineers that are working in the field of digital system design.Contents• Preface;• Process design metrics;• A systems approach to digital system design;• Introduction to microcontrollers and microprocessors;• Instructions and Instruction sets;• Machine language and assembly language;• System memory; Timers, counters and watchdog timer;• Interfacing to local devices / peripherals;• Analogue data and the analogue I/O subsystem;• Multiprocessor communications;• Serial Communications and Network-based interfaces

Network Interface Design for Network-on-Chip

In the culture of globalized integrated circuit (IC, a.k.a chip) production, the use of Intellectual Property (IP) cores, computer aided design tools (CAD) and testing services from un-trusted vendors are prevalent to reduce the time to market. Unfortunately, the globalized business model potentially creates opportunities for hardware tampering and modification from adversary, and this tampering is known as hardware Trojan (HT). Network-on-chip (NoC) has emerged as an efficient on-chip communication infrastructure. In this work, the security aspects of NoC network interface (NI), one of the most critical components in NoC will be investigated and presented. Particularly, the NI design, hardware attack models and countermeasures for NI in a NoC system are explored. An OCP compatible NI is implemented in an IBM0.18ìm CMOS technology. The synthesis results are presented and compared with existing literature. Second, comprehensive hardware attack models targeted for NI are presented from system level to circuit level. The impact of hardware Trojans on NoC functionality and performance are evaluated. Finally, a countermeasure method is proposed to address the hardware attacks in NIs

A Security Policy for a Distributed Utility Metering System

This dissertation describes a security policy for a distributed utility metering system. The system uses untrusted networks, such as the Internet, to communicate between service providers (water, gas, electricity etc.) and the gateway servers at customer premises. Within a building, the system uses a low-bandwidth mains-borne network, or Field-Area Network (FAN), such as Fieldbus, to communicate between the gateway server and each of the utility meters. The FAN is regarded as untrusted, and communications to and from each utility meter must be protected from all other meters and any possible outsiders on the network. It must also be assumed that the gateway server is physically vulnerable to attack, and that its loss must not jeopardise the security of the system. Each service provider must be able to access each utility meter individually. Service providers can send commands to individual utility meters, and obtain individual meter readings applicable to their service. Service providers must not be able to interfere with one another’s service. However, the gateway must be able to interpret communications initiated by individual meters, to ensure that the alarm can be raised to service providers if a meter reading appears to have been tampered with. On high-bandwidth networks, well known symmetric and public-key cryptography techniques can easily provide the required features. However, with a low-bandwidth network such as FANs, the protocol must be carefully optimised to minimise the amount of data transmitted. This dissertation describes a new architecture, in which well-known cryptography principles are applied in the FAN field in a way that has not been described in the literature.Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2007.Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineeringunrestricte

Reliability and Security Assessment of Modern Embedded Devices

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Novel Computational Methods for Integrated Circuit Reverse Engineering

Production of Integrated Circuits (ICs) has been largely strengthened by globalization. System-on-chip providers are capable of utilizing many different providers which can be responsible for a single task. This horizontal structure drastically improves to time-to-market and reduces manufacturing cost. However, untrust of oversea foundries threatens to dismantle the complex economic model currently in place. Many Intellectual Property (IP) consumers become concerned over what potentially malicious or unspecified logic might reside within their application. This logic which is inserted with the intention of causing harm to a consumer has been referred to as a Hardware Trojan (HT). To help IP consumers, researchers have looked into methods for finding HTs. Such methods tend to rely on high-level information relating to the circuit, which might not be accessible. There is a high possibility that IP is delivered in the gate or layout level. Some services and image processing methods can be leveraged to convert layout level information to gate-level, but such formats are incompatible with detection schemes that require hardware description language. By leveraging standard graph and dynamic programming algorithms a set of tools is developed that can help bridge the gap between gate-level netlist access and HT detection. To help in this endeavor this dissertation focuses on several problems associated with reverse engineering ICs. Logic signal identification is used to find malicious signals, and logic desynthesis is used to extract high level details. Each of the proposed method have their results analyzed for accuracy and runtime. It is found that method for finding logic tends to be the most difficult task, in part due to the degree of heuristic\u27s inaccuracy. With minor improvements moderate sized ICs could have their high-level function recovered within minutes, which would allow for a trained eye or automated methods to more easily detect discrepancies within a circuit\u27s design