Control kernel based adaptive control implementation

[EN] A control system with distributed computing resources always should guarantee the safe control of the plant. In this contribution, the concept of control kernel is used for that purpose. Two types of nodes with different resources are defined: the powerful server node and the resource-constrained light node. This architecture allows to split the control tasks into two blocks. Those demanding strong computing resources are allocated in the server nodes and those compelling tasks required to ensure the safety of the controlled plant are allocated in the light nodes. Resource limitations lead to control adaptation. Two simple applications illustrate some of the benefits of this architecture with one server node and one light node, even the architecture can be extended to several nodes. In the first case, an adaptive control is implemented in the server node, providing the control algorithm to the light node, which is also able to compute a local safe control action. In the second experiment, two different control tasks requiring different resources are implemented in a mobile robot control. To keep bounded the computing time at the local level, the supervisor decides the time allocated to each activity, providing the resulting controller to the light node.This work has been partially granted by Conselleria de Educación Generalitat Valenciana, under PROMETEO project number 2008-088, and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci´on under COBAMI project DPI2011-28507-C02-01/02.Simarro Fernández, R.; Albertos Pérez, P.; Simó Ten, JE. (2013). Control kernel based adaptive control implementation. SIGBED review. 10(1):24-28. doi:10.1145/2492385.2492389S242810

Video Sensor Architecture for Surveillance Applications

This paper introduces a flexible hardware and software architecture for a smart video sensor. This sensor has been applied in a video surveillance application where some of these video sensors are deployed, constituting the sensory nodes of a distributed surveillance system. In this system, a video sensor node processes images locally in order to extract objects of interest, and classify them. The sensor node reports the processing results to other nodes in the cloud (a user or higher level software) in the form of an XML description. The hardware architecture of each sensor node has been developed using two DSP processors and an FPGA that controls, in a flexible way, the interconnection among processors and the image data flow. The developed node software is based on pluggable components and runs on a provided execution run-time. Some basic and application-specific software components have been developed, in particular: acquisition, segmentation, labeling, tracking, classification and feature extraction. Preliminary results demonstrate that the system can achieve up to 7.5 frames per second in the worst case, and the true positive rates in the classification of objects are better than 80%. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This work has been partially supported by SENSE project (Specific Targeted Research Project within the thematic priority IST 2.5.3 of the 6th Framework Program of the European Commission: IST Project 033279), and has been also co-funded by the Spanish research projects SIDIRELI: DPI2008-06737-C02-01/02 and COBAMI: DPI2011-28507-C02-02, both partially supported with European FEDER funds.Sánchez Peñarroja, J.; Benet Gilabert, G.; Simó Ten, JE. (2012). Video Sensor Architecture for Surveillance Applications. Sensors. 12(2):1509-1528. https://doi.org/10.3390/s120201509S15091528122Batlle, J. (2002). A New FPGA/DSP-Based Parallel Architecture for Real-Time Image Processing. Real-Time Imaging, 8(5), 345-356. doi:10.1006/rtim.2001.0273Foresti, G. L., Micheloni, C., Piciarelli, C., & Snidaro, L. (2009). Visual Sensor Technology for Advanced Surveillance Systems: Historical View, Technological Aspects and Research Activities in Italy. Sensors, 9(4), 2252-2270. doi:10.3390/s90402252Bramberger, M., Doblander, A., Maier, A., Rinner, B., & Schwabach, H. (2006). Distributed Embedded Smart Cameras for Surveillance Applications. Computer, 39(2), 68-75. doi:10.1109/mc.2006.55Foresti, G. L., Micheloni, C., Snidaro, L., Remagnino, P., & Ellis, T. (2005). Active video-based surveillance system: the low-level image and video processing techniques needed for implementation. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 22(2), 25-37. doi:10.1109/msp.2005.1406473Fuentes, L. M., & Velastin, S. A. (2003). Tracking People for Automatic Surveillance Applications. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 238-245. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-44871-6_28García, J., Pérez, O., Berlanga, A., & Molina, J. M. (2007). Video tracking system optimization using evolution strategies. International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, 17(2), 75-90. doi:10.1002/ima.20100Xu, H., Lv, J., Chen, X., Gong, X., & Yang, C. (2007). Design of video processing and testing system based on DSP and FPGA. 3rd International Symposium on Advanced Optical Manufacturing and Testing Technologies: Optical Test and Measurement Technology and Equipment. doi:10.1117/12.783790Sanfeliu, A., Andrade-Cetto, J., Barbosa, M., Bowden, R., Capitán, J., Corominas, A., … Spaan, M. T. J. (2010). Decentralized Sensor Fusion for Ubiquitous Networking Robotics in Urban Areas. Sensors, 10(3), 2274-2314. doi:10.3390/s100302274http://www.sense-ist.orgXu, H., Lv, J., Chen, X., Gong, X., & Yang, C. (2007). Design of video processing and testing system based on DSP and FPGA. 3rd International Symposium on Advanced Optical Manufacturing and Testing Technologies: Optical Test and Measurement Technology and Equipment. doi:10.1117/12.78379

Magnetic Trails: A Novel Artificial Pheromone for Swarm Robotics in Outdoor Environments

[EN] Swarm robotics finds inspiration in nature to model behaviors, such as the use of pheromone principles. Pheromones provide an indirect and decentralized communication scheme that have shown positive experimental results. Real implementations of pheromones have suffered from slow sensors and have been limited to controlled environments. This paper presents a novel technology to implement real pheromones for swarm robotics in outdoor environments by using magnetized ferrofluids. A ferrofluid solution, with its deposition and magnetization system, is detailed. The proposed substance does not possess harmful materials for the environment and can be safely handled by humans. Validation demonstrates that the substance represents successfully pheromone characteristics of locality, diffusion and evaporation on several surfaces in outdoor conditions. Additionally, the experiments show an improvement over the chemical representation of pheromones by using magnetic substances and existing magnetometer sensor technologies, which provide better response rates and recovery periods than MOX chemical sensors. The present work represents a step toward swarm robotics experimentation in uncontrolled outdoor environments. In addition, the presented pheromone technology may be use by the broad area of swarm robotics for robot exploration and navigation.We would like to warmly thank Cindy Calderon-Arce. This paper was achieved thanks to her support and advice. Special thanks also to Research and Outreach Vice-Rectory at Costa Rica Institute of Technology (VIE, ITCR), for their support of PROE project (code VIE 1440036).Brenes-Torres, JC.; Blanes Noguera, F.; Simó Ten, JE. (2022). Magnetic Trails: A Novel Artificial Pheromone for Swarm Robotics in Outdoor Environments. Computation. 10(6):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/computation1006009811610

A survey on quality of service support on middelware-based distributed messaging systems used in multi agent systems

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19934-9_10Messaging systems are widely used in distributed systems to hide the details of the communications mechanism to the multi agents systems. However, the Quality of Service is treated in different way depending on the messaging system used. This article presents a review and further analysis of the quality of service treatment in the mainly messaging systems used in distributed multi agent systems. The review covers the issues related to the purpose of the functions provided and the scope of the quality of service offered by every messaging system. We propose ontology for classifying and decide which parameters are relevant to the user. The results of the analysis and the ontology can be used to select the most suitable messaging system to distributed multi agent architecture and to establish the quality of service requirements in a distributed system.The study described in this article is a part of the coordinated project SIDIRELI: Distributed Systems with Limited Resources. Control Kernel and Coordination. Education and Science Department, Spanish Government and European FEDER found. CICYT: MICINN: DPI2008-06737-C02-01/02.Poza-Lujan, J.; Posadas-Yagüe, J.; Simó Ten, JE. (2011). A survey on quality of service support on middelware-based distributed messaging systems used in multi agent systems. En International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Springer. 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19934-9_10S7784Gaddah, A., Kunz, T.: A survey of middleware paradigms for mobile computing. Technical Report SCE-03-16. Carleton University Systems and Computing Engineering (2003)Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, http://www.fipa.org/Java Message Service Specification, http://java.sun.com/products/jms/docs.htmlCommon Object Request Broker Architecture, http://www.corba.org/Data Distribution Service, http://portals.omg.org/dds/Java Agent DEvelopment Framework, http://jade.tilab.com/Agent Oriented Software Pty Ltd., JACK Intelligent Agents: User Guide (1999)Nwana, H., Ndumu, D., Lee, L., Collis, J.: ZEUS: A tool-kit for building distributed multi-agent systems. Applied Artifical Intelligence Journal 13(1), 129–186 (1999)Perdikeas, M.K., Chatzipapadopoulos, F.G., Venieris, I.S., Marino, G.: Mobile Agent Standards and Available Platforms. Computer Networks Journal, Special Issue on ’Mobile Agents in Intelligent Networks and Mobile Communication Systems’ 31(10) (1999)Perrone, P.J., Chaganti, K.: J2EE Developer’s Handbook. Sam’s Publishing, Indianapolis (2003)Apache ActiveMQ, http://activemq.apache.org/IBM WebSphere MQSeries, http://mqseries.net/Object Management Group, http://www.omg.org/RTI Data Distribution Service. RTI corp., http://www.rti.com/OpenSplice DDS. PrismTech Ltd., http://www.prismtech.comVogel, A., Kerherve, B., von Bochmann, G., Gecsei, J.: Distributed Multimedia and QoS: A Survey. IEEE Multimedia 2(2), 10–19 (1995)Crawley, E., Nair, R., Rajagopalan, B.: RFC 2386: A Framework for QoS-based Routing in the Internet. IETF Internet Draft, 1–37 (1998)Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. FIPA Quality of Service Ontology Specification. Doc: SC00094A (2002)Sun Microsystems, Inc. Java(TM) Message Service Specification Final Release 1.1 (2002)Object Management Group (OMG). The Common Object Request Broker Architecture and Specification. CORBA 2.4.2 (2001

Event Management Proposal for Distribution Data Service Standard

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00551-5_32This paper presents a proposal to extend the event management subsystem of the Distribution Data Service standard (DDS). The proposal allows user to optimize the use of DDS in networked control systems (NCS). DDS offers a simple event management system based on message filtering. The aim of the proposal is to improve the event management with three main elements: Events, Conditions and Actions. Actions are the new element proposed. Actions perform basic operations in the middleware, discharging the process load of control elements. The proposal is fully compatible with the standard and can be easily added to an existing system. Proposal has been tested in a distributed mobile robot navigation system with interesting results.The study described in this paper is a part of the coordinated project COBAMI: Mission-based Hierarchical Control. Education and Science Department, Spanish Government. CICYT: MICINN: DP1201 1-28507-C02-01/02.Poza-Lujan, J.; Posadas-Yagüe, J.; Simó Ten, JE. (2013). Event Management Proposal for Distribution Data Service Standard. En Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Springer. 259-266. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00551-5_32S259266Sánchez, J., Guarnes, M.Á., Dormido, S.: On the Application of Different Event-Based Sampling Strategies to the Control of a Simple Industrial Process. Sensors 9, 6795–6818 (2009)Sandee, J.H., Heemels, W.P.M.H., van den Bosch, P.P.J.: Case Studies in Event-Driven Control. In: Bemporad, A., Bicchi, A., Buttazzo, G. (eds.) HSCC 2007. LNCS, vol. 4416, pp. 762–765. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)Hadim, S., Nader, M.: Middleware Challenges and Approaches for Wireless Sensor Networks. IEEE Distributed Systems Online 7(3) (2006)Pardo-Castellote, G.: OMG Data-Distribution Service: architectural overview. In: Proceedings of 23rd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops, Providence, USA, vol. 19-22, pp. 200–206 (2003)Object Management Group. Data Distribution Service for Real-time Systems Version 1.2 (2007), http://www.omg.org/Dorf, R.C., Bishop, R.H.: Modern Control Systems, 11th edn. Prentice Hall (2008)Poza-Luján, J., Posadas-Yagüe, J., Simó-Ten, J.: Quality of Service and Quality of Control Based Protocol to Distribute Agents. In: DCAI, pp. 73–80 (2010)Waldbusser, S.: RFC 2819 - Remote Network Monitoring Management Information Base. Network Working Group. Lucent Technologies (2000)Poza-Luján, J., Posadas-Yagüe, J., Simó-Ten, J.: Relationship between Quality of Control and Quality of Service in Mobile Robot Navigation. In: DCAI, pp. 557–564 (2012)K-Team Corporation. Khepera III robot, http://www.k-team.comBraitenberg, V.: Vehicles: Experiments on Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge (1984)Poza-Luján, J.: Propuesta de arquitectura distribuida de control inteligente basada en políticas de calidad de servicio. Universitat Politècnica de València Press (2012

Relationship between quality of control and quality of service in mobile robot navigation

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28765-7_67This article presents the experimental work developed to test the viability and to measure the efficiency of an intelligent control distributed architecture. To do this, a simulated navigation scenario of Braitenberg vehicles has been developed. To test the efficiency, the architecture uses the performance as QoS parameter. The measuring of the quality of the navigation is done through the ITAE QoC parameter. Tested scenarios are: an environment without QoS and QoC man-aging, an environment with a relevant message filtering and an environment with a predictive filtering by the type of control. The results obtained show that some of the processing performed in the control nodes can be moved to the middleware to optimize the robot navigation.The work described in this article is a part of the coordinated project SIDIRELI: (Distributed Systems with Limited Resources) and COBAMI (Mission-Based Control) Education and Science Department, Spanish Government and European FEDER found. MICINN CICYT: SIDIRELI: DPI2008-06737-C02-01/02, COBAMI: DPI2011-28507-C02-02.Poza-Lujan, J.; Posadas-Yagüe, J.; Simó Ten, JE. (2012). Relationship between quality of control and quality of service in mobile robot navigation. En Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence: 9th International Conference. Springer. 557-564. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28765-7_67S557564Vogel, A., Kerherve, B., von Bochmann, G., Gecsei, J.: Distributed Multimedia and QoS: A Survey. IEEE Multimedia 2(2), 10–19 (1995)Crawley, E., Nair, R., Rajagopalan, B.: RFC 2386: A Framework for QoS-based Routing in the Internet. IETF Internet Draft, 1–37 (1998)Bradner, S.: RFC 2026: The Internet Standards Process. IETF Internet Draft, sec.10 (1996)Object Management Group (OMG): Data Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems, v1.1. Document formal (April 12, 2005)Poza, J.L., Posadas, J.L., Simó, J.E.: QoS-based middleware architecture for distributed control systems. In: International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. DCAI, Salamanca, Spain (2008)Poza, J.L., Posadas, J.L., Simó, J.E.: A Survey on Quality of Service Support on Middleware-Based Distributed Messaging Systems Used in Multi Agent Systems. In: 9th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. DCAI, Salamanca, Spain (2011)Dorf, R.C., Bishop, R.H.: Modern Control Systems, 11th edn. Prentice Hall (2008)Soucek, S., Sauter, T.: Quality of Service Concerns in IPBased Control Systems. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 51(6) (December 2004)Poza, J.L., Posadas, J.L., Simó, J.E.: Multi-Agent Architecture with Support to Quality of Service and Quality of Control. In: 11th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, Paisley, UK (2010)Braitenberg, V.: Vehicles: Experiments on Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge (1984)Gabel, O., Litz, L.: QoS-adaptive Control in NCS with Variable Delays and Packet Losses – A Heuristic Approach. In: 43rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (2004)Poza, J.L., Posadas, J.L., Simó, J.E.: From the Queue to the Quality of Service Policy: A Middleware Implementation. In: Omatu, S., Rocha, M.P., Bravo, J., Fernández, F., Corchado, E., Bustillo, A., Corchado, J.M. (eds.) IWANN 2009, Part II. LNCS, vol. 5518, pp. 432–437. Springer, Heidelberg (2009

Smart video sensors for 3D scene reconstruction of large infrastructures

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11042-012-1184-zThis paper introduces a new 3D-based surveillance solution for large infrastructures. Our proposal is based on an accurate 3D reconstruction using the rich information obtained from a network of intelligent video-processing nodes. In this manner, if the scenario to cover is modeled in 3D with high precision, it will be possible to locate the detected objects in the virtual representation. Moreover, as an improvement over previous 2D solutions, having the possibility of modifying the view point enables the application to choose the perspective that better suits the current state of the scenario. In this sense, the contextualization of the events detected in a 3D environment can offer a much better understanding of what is happening in the real world and where it is exactly happening. Details of the video processing nodes are given, as well as of the 3D reconstruction tasks performed afterwards. The possibilities of such a system are described and the performance obtained is analyzed.This work has been partially supported by the ViCoMo project (ITEA2 project IP08009 funded by the Spanish MICINN with project TSI-020400-2011-57), the Spanish Government (TIN2009-14103-C03-03, DPI2008-06737-C02-01/02 and DPI 2011-28507-C02-02) and European FEDER funds.Ripollés Mateu, ÓE.; Simó Ten, JE.; Benet Gilabert, G.; Vivó Hernando, RA. (2014). Smart video sensors for 3D scene reconstruction of large infrastructures. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 73(2):977-993. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-012-1184-zS977993732Atienza-Vanacloig V, Rosell-Ortega J, Andreu-Garcia G, Valiente-Gonzalez J (2008) People and luggage recognition in airport surveillance under real-time constraints. In: 19th international conference on pattern recognition, pp 1–4Cal3D (2011) http://gna.org/projects/cal3d/ . Accessed 19 July 2012Chang F, Chen CJ (2003) A component-labeling algorithm using contour tracing technique. In: 7th int. conference on document analysis and recognition, pp 741–745Cruz-Neira C, Sandin DJ, DeFanti TA, Kenyon RV, Hart JC (1992) The cave: audio visual experience automatic virtual environment. Commun ACM 35:64–72Fleck S, Busch F, Biber P, Strasser W (2006) 3D surveillance a distributed network of smart cameras for real-time tracking and its visualization in 3D. In: Conference on computer vision and pattern recognition workshop (CVPRW06), p 118Hoiem D, Efros AA, Hebert M (2005) Automatic photo pop-up. ACM Trans Graph 24:577–584Javed O, Shah M (2008) Automated multi-camera surveillance: algorithms and practice. Springer, New YorkLipton A, Fujiyoshi H, Patil R (1998) Moving target classification and tracking from real-time video. In: Proceedings of IEEE workshop on applications of computer vision, vol 1, pp 8–14Lloyd DH (1968) A concept of improvement of learning response in the taught lesson. In: Visual education, pp 23–25Osfield R, Burns D (2011) OpenSceneGraph. http://www.openscenegraph.org . Accessed 19 July 2012Rieffel EG, Girgensohn A, Kimber D, Chen T, Liu Q (2007) Geometric tools for multicamera surveillance systems. In: IEEE int. conf. on distributed smart camerasSebe I, Hu J, You S, Neumann U (2003) 3D video surveillance with augmented virtual environments. In: ACM SIGMM workshop on video surveillance, pp 107–112SENSE Consortium (2006) Smart embedded network of sensing entities. Web page: http://www.sense-ist.org (European Commission: IST Project 033279). Accessed 19 July 2012Sánchez J, Benet G, Simó JE (2012) Video sensor architecture for surveillance applications. Sensors 12(2):1509–1528Vouzounaras G, Daras P, Strintzis M (2011) Automatic generation of 3D outdoor and indoor building scenes from a single image. Multimedia Tools Appl. doi: 10.1007/s11042-011-0823-0Yan W, Kieran D, Rafatirad S, Jain R (2011) A comprehensive study of visual event computing. Multimedia Tools Appl 55:443–481Zúñiga M, Brémond F, Thonnat M (2006) Fast and reliable object classification in video based on a 3D generic model. In: Proceedings of the international conference on visual information engineering (VIE2006), pp 26–2

Interference-Aware Schedulability Analysis and Task Allocation for Multicore Hard Real-Time Systems

[EN] There has been a trend towards using multicore platforms for real-time embedded systems due to their high computing performance. In the scheduling of a multicore hard real-time system, there are interference delays due to contention of shared hardware resources. The main sources of interference are memory, cache memory, and the shared memory bus. These interferences are a great source of unpredictability and they are not always taken into account. Recent papers have proposed task models and schedulability algorithms to account for this interference delay. The aim of this paper is to provide a schedulability analysis for a task model that incorporates interference delay, for both fixed and dynamic priorities. We assume an implicit deadline task model. We rely on a task model where this interference is integrated in a general way, without depending on a specific type of hardware resource. There are similar approaches, but they consider fixed priorities. An allocation algorithm to minimise this interference (Imin) is also proposed and compared with existing allocators. The results show how Imin has the best rates in terms of percentages of schedulability and increased utilisation. In addition, Imin presents good results in terms of solution times.This work was supported under Grant PLEC2021-007609 funded by MCIN/ AEI/ 10.13039/ 501100011033 and by the "European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR".Aceituno-Peinado, JM.; Guasque Ortega, A.; Balbastre, P.; Simó Ten, JE.; Crespo, A. (2022). Interference-Aware Schedulability Analysis and Task Allocation for Multicore Hard Real-Time Systems. Electronics. 11(9):1-21. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics1109131312111

Mobile-Based Distributed System for Managing Abandoned or Lost Pets

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00551-5_24This paper presents the work in progress of a mobile-based distributed system which aims to minimize the social impact of abandoned or lost animals. System is based on the use of smart mobile devices to provide message warnings of animals localized. Messages are stored in a database to be processed. In order to enter data such as photography, audio and artificial images, system uses different mobile device interfaces. Data processing consists mainly in matching localized animals with lost animals, assigning abandoned animals at shelters and generating notifications for animal shelters or authorities. Currently, the system is in the development phase. The technical challenges in which we are working are to optimize data and metadata matching, and the management of message warning.The study described in this paper is a part of the coordinated project COBAMI: Mission-based Hierarchical Control. Education and Science Department, Spanish Government. CICYT: MICINN: DP1201 1-28507-C02-01/02.Garrote-Hildebrand, D.; Poza-Lujan, J.; Posadas-Yagüe, J.; Simó Ten, JE. (2013). Mobile-Based Distributed System for Managing Abandoned or Lost Pets. En Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. Springer. 197-200. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00551-5_24S197200Lord, L.K., Wittum, T.E., Ferketich, A.K., Funk, J.A., Rajala-Schultz, P.J.: Search methods that people use to find owners of lost pets. Journal of the Veterinary Association 230(12), 1835–1840 (2007)Weiss, E., Slater, M., Lord, L.: Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them. Animals 2, 301–315 (2012)Laplante, P.A.: Exciting Real-Time Location Applications. IT Professional 13(2), 4–5 (2011), doi:10.1109/MITP.2011.22IFPUG (International Function Point Users Group). The IFPUG Guide to IT and Software Measurement. Auerbach Publications (2012)Yun, L., Peiji, S.: Applying RFID to the pet’s information management to realize collaboration. In: 7th Int. Conf. on Proc. Serv. Syst. Serv. Manage., Tokyo, Japan, pp. 1–6 (2010)Android SDK, http://developer.android.com/sdkClarck, J.E., Johnson, P.B.: Sencha Touch Mobile Javascript Framework. Packt Publishing (2012

The Role of Mixed Criticality Technology in Industry 4.0

[EN] Embedded systems used in critical systems, such as aeronautics, have undergone continuous evolution in recent years. In this evolution, many of the functionalities offered by these systems have been adapted through the introduction of network services that achieve high levels of interconnectivity. The high availability of access to communications networks has enabled the development of new applications that introduce control functions with higher levels of intelligence and adaptation. In these applications, it is necessary to manage different components of an application according to their levels of criticality. The concept of "Industry 4.0" has recently emerged to describe high levels of automation and flexibility in production. The digitization and extensive use of information technologies has become the key to industrial systems. Due to their growing importance and social impact, industrial systems have become part of the systems that are considered critical. This evolution of industrial systems forces the appearance of new technical requirements for software architectures that enable the consolidation of multiple applications in common hardware platforms-including those of different criticality levels. These enabling technologies, together with use of reference models and standardization facilitate the effective transition to this approach. This article analyses the structure of Industry 4.0 systems providing a comprehensive review of existing techniques. The levels and mechanisms of interaction between components are analyzed while considering the impact that the handling of multiple levels of criticality has on the architecture itself-and on the functionalities of the support middleware. Finally, this paper outcomes some of the challenges from a technological and research point of view that the authors identify as crucial for the successful development of these technologies.This research was funded by the Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry MICINN: CICYT project PRECON-I4: "Predictable and dependable computer systems for Industry 4.0" TIN201786520-C3-1-R.Simó Ten, JE.; Balbastre, P.; Blanes Noguera, F.; Poza-Lujan, J.; Guasque Ortega, A. (2021). The Role of Mixed Criticality Technology in Industry 4.0. Electronics. 10(3):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics1003022611610