Improving reconfigurable systems reliability by combining periodical test and redundancy techniques: a case study

This paper revises and introduces to the field of reconfigurable computer systems, some traditional techniques used in the fields of fault-tolerance and testing of digital circuits. The target area is that of on-board spacecraft electronics, as this class of application is a good candidate for the use of reconfigurable computing technology. Fault tolerant strategies are used in order for the system to adapt itself to the severe conditions found in space. In addition, the paper describes some problems and possible solutions for the use of reconfigurable components, based on programmable logic, in space applications

Energy challenges for ICT

The energy consumption from the expanding use of information and communications technology (ICT) is unsustainable with present drivers, and it will impact heavily on the future climate change. However, ICT devices have the potential to contribute signi - cantly to the reduction of CO2 emission and enhance resource e ciency in other sectors, e.g., transportation (through intelligent transportation and advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving vehicles), heating (through smart building control), and manu- facturing (through digital automation based on smart autonomous sensors). To address the energy sustainability of ICT and capture the full potential of ICT in resource e - ciency, a multidisciplinary ICT-energy community needs to be brought together cover- ing devices, microarchitectures, ultra large-scale integration (ULSI), high-performance computing (HPC), energy harvesting, energy storage, system design, embedded sys- tems, e cient electronics, static analysis, and computation. In this chapter, we introduce challenges and opportunities in this emerging eld and a common framework to strive towards energy-sustainable ICT

Integrated Design and Implementation of Embedded Control Systems with Scilab

Embedded systems are playing an increasingly important role in control engineering. Despite their popularity, embedded systems are generally subject to resource constraints and it is therefore difficult to build complex control systems on embedded platforms. Traditionally, the design and implementation of control systems are often separated, which causes the development of embedded control systems to be highly time-consuming and costly. To address these problems, this paper presents a low-cost, reusable, reconfigurable platform that enables integrated design and implementation of embedded control systems. To minimize the cost, free and open source software packages such as Linux and Scilab are used. Scilab is ported to the embedded ARM-Linux system. The drivers for interfacing Scilab with several communication protocols including serial, Ethernet, and Modbus are developed. Experiments are conducted to test the developed embedded platform. The use of Scilab enables implementation of complex control algorithms on embedded platforms. With the developed platform, it is possible to perform all phases of the development cycle of embedded control systems in a unified environment, thus facilitating the reduction of development time and cost.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures; Open Access at http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/papers/s8095501.pd

Design and Development of a Human Building Interaction Laboratory

A future is envisioned where buildings are assembled on-site from factory manufactured modular elements that integrate the smart technology needed to enable scalable, cost-effective solutions with autonomous, occupant-responsive, healthy, and sustainable features. The use of modular elements would mean that buildings are assembled rather than constructed on-site with better quality control, less material waste, and more predictable schedules. The use of manufactured building elements can enable more cost-effective integration of new sensors, embedded intelligence, networking, adaptive interfaces, renewable energy, energy recovery, comfort delivery, and resiliency technologies, making high-performance buildings more affordable. To explore and evaluate these modular and intelligent comfort delivery concepts and advanced approaches for interaction with occupants, a new human-building interaction laboratory (HBIL) has been designed and is under development. The facility has a modular construction layout with thermally active panels. The interior surface temperature of each panel can be individually controlled using a hydronic system. Such configuration allows us to emulate different climate zones and building type conditions and perform studies such as the effect of different active building surfaces on thermal comfort, localized comfort delivery, and occupant comfort control, among others. Moreover, each panel is reconfigurable to allow investigating different interior surface treatments for different visual and acoustic comfort conditions. In this paper, the overall design approach of the facility is presented. Furthermore, a prototype panel has been constructed to validate the design and assess the dynamic and steady-state thermal performance. Test results for the prototype panel are also presented here with a discussion on their agreement with design phase modeling results