CSP channels for CAN-bus connected embedded control systems

Closed loop control system typically contains multitude of sensors and actuators operated simultaneously. So they are parallel and distributed in its essence. But when mapping this parallelism to software, lot of obstacles concerning multithreading communication and synchronization issues arise. To overcome this problem, the CT kernel/library based on CSP algebra has been developed. This project (TES.5410) is about developing communication extension to the CT library to make it applicable in distributed systems. Since the library is tailored for control systems, properties and requirements of control systems are taken into special consideration. Applicability of existing middleware solutions is examined. A comparison of applicable fieldbus protocols is done in order to determine most suitable ones and CAN fieldbus is chosen to be first fieldbus used. Brief overview of CSP and existing CSP based libraries is given. Middleware architecture is proposed along with few novel ideas

Real-time and fault tolerance in distributed control software

Closed loop control systems typically contain multitude of spatially distributed sensors and actuators operated simultaneously. So those systems are parallel and distributed in their essence. But mapping this parallelism onto the given distributed hardware architecture, brings in some additional requirements: safe multithreading, optimal process allocation, real-time scheduling of bus and network resources. Nowadays, fault tolerance methods and fast even online reconfiguration are becoming increasingly important. All those often conflicting requirements, make design and implementation of real-time distributed control systems an extremely difficult task, that requires substantial knowledge in several areas of control and computer science. Although many design methods have been proposed so far, none of them had succeeded to cover all important aspects of the problem at hand. [1] Continuous increase of production in embedded market, makes a simple and natural design methodology for real-time systems needed more then ever

Joint Coding and Scheduling Optimization in Wireless Systems with Varying Delay Sensitivities

Throughput and per-packet delay can present strong trade-offs that are important in the cases of delay sensitive applications.We investigate such trade-offs using a random linear network coding scheme for one or more receivers in single hop wireless packet erasure broadcast channels. We capture the delay sensitivities across different types of network applications using a class of delay metrics based on the norms of packet arrival times. With these delay metrics, we establish a unified framework to characterize the rate and delay requirements of applications and optimize system parameters. In the single receiver case, we demonstrate the trade-off between average packet delay, which we view as the inverse of throughput, and maximum ordered inter-arrival delay for various system parameters. For a single broadcast channel with multiple receivers having different delay constraints and feedback delays, we jointly optimize the coding parameters and time-division scheduling parameters at the transmitters. We formulate the optimization problem as a Generalized Geometric Program (GGP). This approach allows the transmitters to adjust adaptively the coding and scheduling parameters for efficient allocation of network resources under varying delay constraints. In the case where the receivers are served by multiple non-interfering wireless broadcast channels, the same optimization problem is formulated as a Signomial Program, which is NP-hard in general. We provide approximation methods using successive formulation of geometric programs and show the convergence of approximations.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure