EOS: A project to investigate the design and construction of real-time distributed embedded operating systems

The EOS project is investigating the design and construction of a family of real-time distributed embedded operating systems for reliable, distributed aerospace applications. Using the real-time programming techniques developed in co-operation with NASA in earlier research, the project staff is building a kernel for a multiple processor networked system. The first six months of the grant included a study of scheduling in an object-oriented system, the design philosophy of the kernel, and the architectural overview of the operating system. In this report, the operating system and kernel concepts are described. An environment for the experiments has been built and several of the key concepts of the system have been prototyped. The kernel and operating system is intended to support future experimental studies in multiprocessing, load-balancing, routing, software fault-tolerance, distributed data base design, and real-time processing

Extending remote patient monitoring with mobile real time clinical decision support

Large scale implementation of telemedicine services such as telemonitoring and teletreatment will generate huge amounts of clinical data. Even small amounts of data from continuous patient monitoring cannot be scrutinised in real time and round the clock by health professionals. In future huge volumes of such data will have to be routinely screened by intelligent software systems. We investigate how to make m-health systems for ambulatory care more intelligent by applying a Decision Support approach in the analysis and interpretation of biosignal data and to support adherence to evidence-based best practice such as is expressed in treatment protocols and clinical practice guidelines. The resulting Clinical Decision Support Systems must be able to accept and interpret real time streaming biosignals and context data as well as the patient’s (relatively less dynamic) clinical and administrative data. In this position paper we describe the telemonitoring/teletreatment system developed at the University of Twente, based on Body Area Network (BAN) technology, and present our vision of how BAN-based telemedicine services can be enhanced by incorporating mobile real time Clinical Decision Support. We believe that the main innovative aspects of the vision relate to the implementation of decision support on a mobile platform; incorporation of real time input and analysis of streaming\ud biosignals into the inferencing process; implementation of decision support in a distributed system; and the consequent challenges such as maintenance of consistency of knowledge, state and beliefs across a distributed environment

Expert system decision support for low-cost launch vehicle operations

Progress in assessing the feasibility, benefits, and risks associated with AI expert systems applied to low cost expendable launch vehicle systems is described. Part one identified potential application areas in vehicle operations and on-board functions, assessed measures of cost benefit, and identified key technologies to aid in the implementation of decision support systems in this environment. Part two of the program began the development of prototypes to demonstrate real-time vehicle checkout with controller and diagnostic/analysis intelligent systems and to gather true measures of cost savings vs. conventional software, verification and validation requirements, and maintainability improvement. The main objective of the expert advanced development projects was to provide a robust intelligent system for control/analysis that must be performed within a specified real-time window in order to meet the demands of the given application. The efforts to develop the two prototypes are described. Prime emphasis was on a controller expert system to show real-time performance in a cryogenic propellant loading application and safety validation implementation of this system experimentally, using commercial-off-the-shelf software tools and object oriented programming techniques. This smart ground support equipment prototype is based in C with imbedded expert system rules written in the CLIPS protocol. The relational database, ORACLE, provides non-real-time data support. The second demonstration develops the vehicle/ground intelligent automation concept, from phase one, to show cooperation between multiple expert systems. This automated test conductor (ATC) prototype utilizes a knowledge-bus approach for intelligent information processing by use of virtual sensors and blackboards to solve complex problems. It incorporates distributed processing of real-time data and object-oriented techniques for command, configuration control, and auto-code generation

Software Evolution Approach for the Development of Command and Control Systems

2000 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS), June 11-13, 2000, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CAThis paper addresses the problem of how to produce reliable software that is also flexible and cost effective for the DoD distributed software domain. DoD software systems fall into two categories: information systems and war fighter systems. Both types of systems can be distributed, heterogeneous and network-based, consisting of a set of components running on different platforms and working together via multiple communication links and protocols. We propose to tackle the problem using prototyping and a “wrapper and glue” technology for interoperability and integration. This paper describes a distributed development environment, CAPS (Computer- Aided Prototyping System), to support rapid prototyping and automatic generation of wrapper and glue software based on designer specifications. The CAPS system uses a fifth-generation prototyping language to model the communication structure, timing constraints, I/O control, and data buffering that comprise the requirements for an embedded software system. The language supports the specification of hard real-time systems with reusable components from domain specific component libraries. CAPS has been used successfully as a research tool in prototyping large war-fighter control systems (e.g. the command-and-control station, cruise missile flight control system, missile defense systems) and demonstrated its capability to support the development of large complex embedded software.This research was supported in part by the U. S. Army Research Office under contract/grant number 35037-MA and 40473-MA

Implementation of local area network extension for instrumentation standard trigger capabilities in advanced data acquisition platforms

Synchronization mechanisms are an essential part of the real-time distributed data acquisition systems (DASs) used in fusion experiments. Traditionally, they have been based on the use of digital signals. The approach known as local area network extension for instrumentation (LXI) provides a set of very powerful synchronization and trigger mechanisms. The Intelligent Test Measurement System (ITMS) is a new platform designed to implement distributed data acquisition and fast data processing for fusion experiments. It is based on COMPATPCI technology and its extension to instrumentation (PXI). Hardware and software elements have been developed to include LXI trigger and synchronization mechanisms in this platform in order to obtain a class A LXI instrument. This paper describes the implementation of such a system, involving the following components: commercial hardware running a Linux operating system; a real-time extension to an operating system and network (RTAI and RTNET), which implements a software precision time protocol (PTP) using IEEE1588; an ad hoc PXI module to support hardware implementation of PTP-IEEE 1588; and the multipoint, low-voltage differential signaling hardware LXI trigger bus. ©2008 American Institute of Physic

Statistical Model Checking of e-Motions Domain-Specific Modeling Languages

Domain experts may use novel tools that allow them to de- sign and model their systems in a notation very close to the domain problem. However, the use of tools for the statistical analysis of stochas- tic systems requires software engineers to carefully specify such systems in low level and specific languages. In this work we line up both sce- narios, specific domain modeling and statistical analysis. Specifically, we have extended the e-Motions system, a framework to develop real-time domain-specific languages where the behavior is specified in a natural way by in-place transformation rules, to support the statistical analysis of systems defined using it. We discuss how restricted e-Motions sys- tems are used to produce Maude corresponding specifications, using a model transformation from e-Motions to Maude, which comply with the restrictions of the VeStA tool, and which can therefore be used to per- form statistical analysis on the stochastic systems thus generated. We illustrate our approach with a very simple messaging distributed system.Universidad de Málaga Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Research Project TIN2014-52034-R an

Application-level fault tolerance in real-time embedded systems

Critical real-time embedded systems need to make use of fault tolerance techniques to cope with operation time errors, either in hardware or software. Fault tolerance is usually applied by means of redundancy and diversity. Redundant hardware implies the establishment of a distributed system executing a set of fault tolerance strategies by software, and may also employ some form of diversity, by using different variants or versions for the same processing. This work proposes and evaluates a fault tolerance framework for supporting the development of dependable applications. This framework is build upon basic operating system services and middleware communications and brings flexible and transparent support for application threads. A case study involving radar filtering is described and the framework advantages and drawbacks are discussed.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

An application of augmented MDA for the extended healthcare enterprise

Mobile health systems extend the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider by bringing services to the patient any time and anywhere. We propose a methodology for the development of such extended enterprise computing systems which applies a model-driven design and development approach augmented with formal validation and verification to address quality and correctness and to support model transformation. At the University of Twente we develop context aware m-health systems based on Body Area Networks (BANs). A set of deployed BANs are supported by a server. We refer to this distributed system as a BAN System. Development of such distributed m-health systems requires a sound software engineering approach and this is what we target with the proposed methodology. The methodology is illustrated with reference to modelling activities targeted at real implementations. BAN implementations are being trialled in a number of clinical settings including epilepsy management and management of chronic pain

Applications of agent architectures to decision support in distributed simulation and training systems

This work develops the approach and presents the results of a new model for applying intelligent agents to complex distributed interactive simulation for command and control. In the framework of tactical command, control communications, computers and intelligence (C4I), software agents provide a novel approach for efficient decision support and distributed interactive mission training. An agent-based architecture for decision support is designed, implemented and is applied in a distributed interactive simulation to significantly enhance the command and control training during simulated exercises. The architecture is based on monitoring, evaluation, and advice agents, which cooperate to provide alternatives to the dec ision-maker in a time and resource constrained environment. The architecture is implemented and tested within the context of an AWACS Weapons Director trainer tool. The foundation of the work required a wide range of preliminary research topics to be covered, including real-time systems, resource allocation, agent-based computing, decision support systems, and distributed interactive simulations. The major contribution of our work is the construction of a multi-agent architecture and its application to an operational decision support system for command and control interactive simulation. The architectural design for the multi-agent system was drafted in the first stage of the work. In the next stage rules of engagement, objective and cost functions were determined in the AWACS (Airforce command and control) decision support domain. Finally, the multi-agent architecture was implemented and evaluated inside a distributed interactive simulation test-bed for AWACS Vv\u27Ds. The evaluation process combined individual and team use of the decision support system to improve the performance results of WD trainees. The decision support system is designed and implemented a distributed architecture for performance-oriented management of software agents. The approach provides new agent interaction protocols and utilizes agent performance monitoring and remote synchronization mechanisms. This multi-agent architecture enables direct and indirect agent communication as well as dynamic hierarchical agent coordination. Inter-agent communications use predefined interfaces, protocols, and open channels with specified ontology and semantics. Services can be requested and responses with results received over such communication modes. Both traditional (functional) parameters and nonfunctional (e.g. QoS, deadline, etc.) requirements and captured in service requests