Protecting Real-Time GPU Kernels on Integrated CPU-GPU SoC Platforms (Artifact)

This artifact is based on BWLOCK++, a software framework to protect the performance of GPU kernels from co-scheduled memory intensive CPU applications in platforms containing integrated GPUs. The artifact is designed to support the claims of the companion paper and contains instructions on how to build and execute BWLOCK++ on a target hardware platform

Protecting Real-Time GPU Kernels on Integrated CPU-GPU SoC Platforms

Integrated CPU-GPU architecture provides excellent acceleration capabilities for data parallel applications on embedded platforms while meeting the size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements. However, sharing of main memory between CPU applications and GPU kernels can severely affect the execution of GPU kernels and diminish the performance gain provided by GPU. For example, in the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 platform, an integrated CPU-GPU architecture, we observed that, in the worst case, the GPU kernels can suffer as much as 3X slowdown in the presence of co-running memory intensive CPU applications. In this paper, we propose a software mechanism, which we call BWLOCK++, to protect the performance of GPU kernels from co-scheduled memory intensive CPU applications

Novel Methodologies for Predictable CPU-To-GPU Command Offloading

There is an increasing industrial and academic interest towards a more predictable characterization of real-time tasks on high-performance heterogeneous embedded platforms, where a host system offloads parallel workloads to an integrated accelerator, such as General Purpose-Graphic Processing Units (GP-GPUs). In this paper, we analyze an important aspect that has not yet been considered in the real-time literature, and that may significantly affect real-time performance if not properly treated, i.e., the time spent by the CPU for submitting GP-GPU operations. We will show that the impact of CPU-to-GPU kernel submissions may be indeed relevant for typical real-time workloads, and that it should be properly factored in when deriving an integrated schedulability analysis for the considered platforms. This is the case when an application is composed of many small and consecutive GPU compute/copy operations. While existing techniques mitigate this issue by batching kernel calls into a reduced number of persistent kernel invocations, in this work we present and evaluate three other approaches that are made possible by recently released versions of the NVIDIA CUDA GP-GPU API, and by Vulkan, a novel open standard GPU API that allows an improved control of GPU command submissions. We will show that this added control may significantly improve the application performance and predictability due to a substantial reduction in CPU-to-GPU driver interactions, making Vulkan an interesting candidate for becoming the state-of-the-art API for heterogeneous Real-Time systems. Our findings are evaluated on a latest generation NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier embedded board, executing typical workloads involving Deep Neural Networks of parameterized complexity

A Perspective on Safety and Real-Time Issues for GPU Accelerated ADAS

The current trend in designing Advanced Driving Assistance System (ADAS) is to enhance their computing power by using modern multi/many core accelerators. For many critical applications such as pedestrian detection, line following, and path planning the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is the most popular choice for obtaining orders of magnitude increases in performance at modest power consumption. This is made possible by exploiting the general purpose nature of today's GPUs, as such devices are known to express unprecedented performance per watt on generic embarrassingly parallel workloads (as opposed of just graphical rendering, as GPUs where only designed to sustain in previous generations). In this work, we explore novel challenges that system engineers have to face in terms of real-time constraints and functional safety when the GPU is the chosen accelerator. More specifically, we investigate how much of the adopted safety standards currently applied for traditional platforms can be translated to a GPU accelerated platform used in critical scenarios

Dependable Embedded Systems

This Open Access book introduces readers to many new techniques for enhancing and optimizing reliability in embedded systems, which have emerged particularly within the last five years. This book introduces the most prominent reliability concerns from today’s points of view and roughly recapitulates the progress in the community so far. Unlike other books that focus on a single abstraction level such circuit level or system level alone, the focus of this book is to deal with the different reliability challenges across different levels starting from the physical level all the way to the system level (cross-layer approaches). The book aims at demonstrating how new hardware/software co-design solution can be proposed to ef-fectively mitigate reliability degradation such as transistor aging, processor variation, temperature effects, soft errors, etc. Provides readers with latest insights into novel, cross-layer methods and models with respect to dependability of embedded systems; Describes cross-layer approaches that can leverage reliability through techniques that are pro-actively designed with respect to techniques at other layers; Explains run-time adaptation and concepts/means of self-organization, in order to achieve error resiliency in complex, future many core systems

Accessible software frameworks for reproducible image analysis of host-pathogen interactions

Um die Mechanismen hinter lebensgefährlichen Krankheiten zu verstehen, müssen die zugrundeliegenden Interaktionen zwischen den Wirtszellen und krankheitserregenden Mikroorganismen bekannt sein. Die kontinuierlichen Verbesserungen in bildgebenden Verfahren und Computertechnologien ermöglichen die Anwendung von Methoden aus der bildbasierten Systembiologie, welche moderne Computeralgorithmen benutzt um das Verhalten von Zellen, Geweben oder ganzen Organen präzise zu messen. Um den Standards des digitalen Managements von Forschungsdaten zu genügen, müssen Algorithmen den FAIR-Prinzipien (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) entsprechen und zur Verbreitung ebenjener in der wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft beitragen. Dies ist insbesondere wichtig für interdisziplinäre Teams bestehend aus Experimentatoren und Informatikern, in denen Computerprogramme zur Verbesserung der Kommunikation und schnellerer Adaption von neuen Technologien beitragen können. In dieser Arbeit wurden daher Software-Frameworks entwickelt, welche dazu beitragen die FAIR-Prinzipien durch die Entwicklung von standardisierten, reproduzierbaren, hochperformanten, und leicht zugänglichen Softwarepaketen zur Quantifizierung von Interaktionen in biologischen System zu verbreiten. Zusammenfassend zeigt diese Arbeit wie Software-Frameworks zu der Charakterisierung von Interaktionen zwischen Wirtszellen und Pathogenen beitragen können, indem der Entwurf und die Anwendung von quantitativen und FAIR-kompatiblen Bildanalyseprogrammen vereinfacht werden. Diese Verbesserungen erleichtern zukünftige Kollaborationen mit Lebenswissenschaftlern und Medizinern, was nach dem Prinzip der bildbasierten Systembiologie zur Entwicklung von neuen Experimenten, Bildgebungsverfahren, Algorithmen, und Computermodellen führen wird

Deep Learning in Mobile and Wireless Networking: A Survey

The rapid uptake of mobile devices and the rising popularity of mobile applications and services pose unprecedented demands on mobile and wireless networking infrastructure. Upcoming 5G systems are evolving to support exploding mobile traffic volumes, agile management of network resource to maximize user experience, and extraction of fine-grained real-time analytics. Fulfilling these tasks is challenging, as mobile environments are increasingly complex, heterogeneous, and evolving. One potential solution is to resort to advanced machine learning techniques to help managing the rise in data volumes and algorithm-driven applications. The recent success of deep learning underpins new and powerful tools that tackle problems in this space. In this paper we bridge the gap between deep learning and mobile and wireless networking research, by presenting a comprehensive survey of the crossovers between the two areas. We first briefly introduce essential background and state-of-the-art in deep learning techniques with potential applications to networking. We then discuss several techniques and platforms that facilitate the efficient deployment of deep learning onto mobile systems. Subsequently, we provide an encyclopedic review of mobile and wireless networking research based on deep learning, which we categorize by different domains. Drawing from our experience, we discuss how to tailor deep learning to mobile environments. We complete this survey by pinpointing current challenges and open future directions for research