Context-aware adaptation in DySCAS

DySCAS is a dynamically self-configuring middleware for automotive control systems. The addition of autonomic, context-aware dynamic configuration to automotive control systems brings a potential for a wide range of benefits in terms of robustness, flexibility, upgrading etc. However, the automotive systems represent a particularly challenging domain for the deployment of autonomics concepts, having a combination of real-time performance constraints, severe resource limitations, safety-critical aspects and cost pressures. For these reasons current systems are statically configured. This paper describes the dynamic run-time configuration aspects of DySCAS and focuses on the extent to which context-aware adaptation has been achieved in DySCAS, and the ways in which the various design and implementation challenges are met

A Survey of Techniques For Improving Energy Efficiency in Embedded Computing Systems

Recent technological advances have greatly improved the performance and features of embedded systems. With the number of just mobile devices now reaching nearly equal to the population of earth, embedded systems have truly become ubiquitous. These trends, however, have also made the task of managing their power consumption extremely challenging. In recent years, several techniques have been proposed to address this issue. In this paper, we survey the techniques for managing power consumption of embedded systems. We discuss the need of power management and provide a classification of the techniques on several important parameters to highlight their similarities and differences. This paper is intended to help the researchers and application-developers in gaining insights into the working of power management techniques and designing even more efficient high-performance embedded systems of tomorrow

On-Line Dependability Enhancement of Multiprocessor SoCs by Resource Management

This paper describes a new approach towards dependable design of homogeneous multi-processor SoCs in an example satellite-navigation application. First, the NoC dependability is functionally verified via embedded software. Then the Xentium processor tiles are periodically verified via on-line self-testing techniques, by using a new IIP Dependability Manager. Based on the Dependability Manager results, faulty tiles are electronically excluded and replaced by fault-free spare tiles via on-line resource management. This integrated approach enables fast electronic fault detection/diagnosis and repair, and hence a high system availability. The dependability application runs in parallel with the actual application, resulting in a very dependable system. All parts have been verified by simulation

Power Management Techniques for Data Centers: A Survey

With growing use of internet and exponential growth in amount of data to be stored and processed (known as 'big data'), the size of data centers has greatly increased. This, however, has resulted in significant increase in the power consumption of the data centers. For this reason, managing power consumption of data centers has become essential. In this paper, we highlight the need of achieving energy efficiency in data centers and survey several recent architectural techniques designed for power management of data centers. We also present a classification of these techniques based on their characteristics. This paper aims to provide insights into the techniques for improving energy efficiency of data centers and encourage the designers to invent novel solutions for managing the large power dissipation of data centers.Comment: Keywords: Data Centers, Power Management, Low-power Design, Energy Efficiency, Green Computing, DVFS, Server Consolidatio

An Approach to Manage Reconfigurations and Reduce Area Cost in Hard Real-Time Reconfigurable Systems

This article presents a methodology to build real-time reconfigurable systems that ensure that all the temporal constraints of a set of applications are met, while optimizing the utilization of the available reconfigurable resources. Starting from a static platform that meets all the real-time deadlines, our approach takes advantage of run-time reconfiguration in order to reduce the area needed while guaranteeing that all the deadlines are still met. This goal is achieved by identifying which tasks must be always ready for execution in order to meet the deadlines, and by means of a methodology that also allows reducing the area requirements

Design and management of image processing pipelines within CPS: Acquired experience towards the end of the FitOptiVis ECSEL Project

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are dynamic and reactive systems interacting with processes, environment and, sometimes, humans. They are often distributed with sensors and actuators, characterized for being smart, adaptive, predictive and react in real-time. Indeed, image- and video-processing pipelines are a prime source for environmental information for systems allowing them to take better decisions according to what they see. Therefore, in FitOptiVis, we are developing novel methods and tools to integrate complex image- and video-processing pipelines. FitOptiVis aims to deliver a reference architecture for describing and optimizing quality and resource management for imaging and video pipelines in CPSs both at design- and run-time. The architecture is concretized in low-power, high-performance, smart components, and in methods and tools for combined design-time and run-time multi-objective optimization and adaptation within system and environment constraints

BioScript: programming safe chemistry on laboratories-on-a-chip

This paper introduces BioScript, a domain-specific language (DSL) for programmable biochemistry which executes on emerging microfluidic platforms. The goal of this research is to provide a simple, intuitive, and type-safe DSL that is accessible to life science practitioners. The novel feature of the language is its syntax, which aims to optimize human readability; the technical contributions of the paper include the BioScript type system and relevant portions of its compiler. The type system ensures that certain types of errors, specific to biochemistry, do not occur, including the interaction of chemicals that may be unsafe. The compiler includes novel optimizations that place biochemical operations to execute concurrently on a spatial 2D array platform on the granularity of a control flow graph, as opposed to individual basic blocks. Results are obtained using both a cycle-accurate microfluidic simulator and a software interface to a real-world platform