07101 Abstracts Collection -- Quantitative Aspects of Embedded Systems

From March 5 to March 9, 2007, the Dagstuhl Seminar 07101 ``Quantitative Aspects of Embedded Systems\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

CONTREX: Design of embedded mixed-criticality CONTRol systems under consideration of EXtra-functional properties

The increasing processing power of today’s HW/SW platforms leads to the integration of more and more functions in a single device. Additional design challenges arise when these functions share computing resources and belong to different criticality levels. CONTREX complements current activities in the area of predictable computing platforms and segregation mechanisms with techniques to consider the extra-functional properties, i.e., timing constraints, power, and temperature. CONTREX enables energy efficient and cost aware design through analysis and optimization of these properties with regard to application demands at different criticality levels. This article presents an overview of the CONTREX European project, its main innovative technology (extension of a model based design approach, functional and extra-functional analysis with executable models and run-time management) and the final results of three industrial use-cases from different domain (avionics, automotive and telecommunication).The work leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2011 under grant agreement no. 611146

Fault tolerance in WBAN applications

One of the most promising applications of IoT is Wireless Body Area Net-works (WBANs) in medical applications. They allow physiological signals monitoring of patients without the presence of nearby medical personnel. Furthermore, WBANs enable feedback action to be taken either periodically or event-based following the Networked Control Systems (NCSs) techniques. This thesis first presents the architecture of a fault tolerant WBAN. Sensors data are sent over two redundant paths to be processed, analyzed and monitored. The two main communication protocols utilized in this system are Low power Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) and Long Term Evolution (LTE). Riverbed Modeler is used to study the system’s behavior. Simulation results are collected with 95% confidence analysis on 33 runs on different initial seeds. It is proven that the system is fully operational. It is then shown that the system can withstand interference and system’s performance is quantified. Results indicate that the system succeeds in meeting all required control criteria in the presence of two different interference models. The second contribution of this thesis is the design of an FPGA-based smart band for health monitoring applications in WBANs. This FPGA-based smart band has a softcore processor and its allocated SRAM block as well as auxiliary modules. A novel scheme for full initial configuration and Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration through the WLAN network is integrated into this design. Fault tolerance techniques are used to mitigate transient faults such as Single Event Upsets (SEUs) and Multiple Event Upsets (MEUs). The system is studied in a normal environment as well as in a harsh environment. System availability is then obtained using Markov Models and a case study is presented

Networked control systems for intelligent transportation systems and industrial automation

This thesis presents a study of two different applications of Networked Control Systems. The first is: Ethernet Networked Control System On-board of Train-wagons. An Ethernet backbone is shared between control and entertainment. The wagon contains a dedicated control server and a dedicated entertainment server, which act as fault-tolerant machines for one another. In the event of a server failure, the remaining machine can serve both entertainment and/or control. The study aims at enhancing system design in order to maximize the tolerable entertainment load in the event of a control/entertainment server failure, while not causing any control violations. This fault-tolerant system is mathematically analyzed using a performability model to relate failure rates, enhancements and rewards. The model is taken further to test two identical wagons, with a total of four fault-tolerant servers. All possible failure sequences are simulated and a different communication philosophy is tested to further minimize the degradation of the entertainment load supported during the failure of up to three of the four servers. The system is shown to be capable of operating with minimal degradation with one out of four servers. The second is: Wireless Networked Control Systems (WNCS) for Industrial Automation. A WNCS using standard 802.11 and 802.3 protocols for communication is presented. Wireless Interface for Sensors and Actuators (WISA) by ABB is used as a benchmark for comparison. The basic unit is a single workcell, however, there is a need to cascade several cells along a production line. Simulations are conducted and a nontraditional allocation scheme is used to ensure correct operation under the effect of co-channel interference and network congestion. Next, fault-tolerance at the controller level is investigated due to the importance of minimizing downtime resulting from controller failure. Two different techniques of interconnecting neighboring cells are investigated. The study models both a two and three-cell scenario, and all systems show that fault-tolerance is achievable. This is mathematically studied using a performability analysis to relate failure rates with rewards at each failure state. All simulations are conducted on OPNET Network Modeler and results are subjected to a 95% confidence analysis