An Improved Data Error Detection Technique for Dependable Embedded Software

Thati, Venu Babu; Vankeirsbilck, Jens; Penneman, Niels; Pissoort, Davy; Boydens, Jeroen

doi:10.1109/prdc.2018.00037

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Being one of the best known DFED techniques, it is well suited to analyze DETECTOR's DFE detection capability. Based on this technique, Thati et al developed FDSC, which generally showed an improved error detection ratio [23]. Combined, SWIFT and FDSC are well suited to evaluate the DFE detection capability of DETECTOR in light of the state-of-the-art.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the comparison stage, each used register is compared to its matching shadow register to make sure the data is still correct. Over the years, many techniques using different comparison and duplication strategies have been developed [20]- [23]. Thati et al performed several studies showing how the choice of duplication and comparison strategy, and according trade-off with imposed overhead, affects the error detection capability of those techniques [24].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Soft Error Detection through Low-level Re-execution

Blaere

Vankeirsbilck

Boydens

2021

2021 5th International Conference on System Reliability and Safety (ICSRS)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Nowadays, embedded systems are widely used both in general-purpose as well as in safety-critical applications. Due to technological advances, these embedded systems can operate on extremely small footprints and low voltages. This, however, makes them more susceptible to external disturbances such as electromagnetic interference. These disturbances can cause single event upsets, a bit being flipped inside the microcontroller, which in turn can result in unexpected and unpredictable behavior of the system due to control flow errors or data flow errors. Many software-implemented control flow and data flow error detection techniques have been examined in the past. However, these techniques often require a large amount of devoted CPU registers to work correctly. Not every system is able to devote a large portion of its registers to an error detection technique. This paper proposes DETECTOR: a new low-level re-execution based technique protecting against both data flow and control flow errors, while using only three CPU registers. The experimental results presented in this paper are promising, showing that DETECTOR is able to significantly increase the reliability of the system.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Error Detection through Low-level Re-execution

Blaere

Vankeirsbilck

Boydens

2021

2021 5th International Conference on System Reliability and Safety (ICSRS)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For DFE detection, our techniques are compared to both SWIFT (Software Implemented Fault Tolerance), introduced by Reis et al [21], and FDSC (Full Duplication Selective Comparison), introduced by Thati et al [16]. Both use the duplication and comparison strategy to detect DFEs.…”

Section: State-of-the-artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilizing Parity Checking to Optimize Soft Error Detection Through Low-Level Reexecution

De Blaere,

Vankeirsbilck,

Boydens

2023

IEEE Trans. Rel.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Higher component density, lower voltage levels and higher transistor counts increase programmable systems' susceptibility to transient faults. At the same time, the adoption of embedded systems in many safety-critical and mission-critical systems makes their reliability of utmost importance. Softwareimplemented error detection techniques can be utilized to protect these systems as an alternative to less flexible and costlier hardware solutions like redundant hardware or fully duplicated systems. One of these techniques is the low-level re-executionbased technique called DETECTOR, which matches the error reduction capabilities of other state-of-the-art techniques while utilizing only three reserved CPU registers. This is in contrast to other techniques, which required a large number of CPU registers to be reserved, making them unusable for some programs. This paper provides an optimization of DETECTOR by combining parity checking with DETECTOR's re-execution mechanism. The technique, called P-DETECTOR, is validated extensively on multiple data processing and I/O-driven case studies and compared to the state-of-the-art. The results show that, compared to an unprotected system, the P-DETECTOR technique reduces the percentage of faults resulting in a corrupted output by 93.76% for control flow errors and by 87.89% for data flow errors, outperforming DETECTOR and matching other state-ofthe-art techniques like RACFED, SWIFT and FDSC.

show abstract

“…Using the developed HIL setup, bit-flips can be injected in the remaining cpu registers to cause data flow errors risk free. Similarly, the effectiveness of data flow error detection techniques can be evaluated when applied to a more input/output-driven case study [4,17]. Once known, the best performing data flow error detection technique can be combined with RACFED to develop a technique that is able to detect both control flow errors and data flow errors.…”

Section: Drawback Of the Created Fault Injection Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Hardware-In-Loop-Based Fault Injection to Determine the Effects of Control Flow Errors in Industrial Control Programs

Vankeirsbilck

Hallez

Boydens

2020

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Embedded systems, which are at the core of many small scale and large scale machines, are affected by external disturbances which can introduce control flow errors. These control flow errors can affect the control program executing on the embedded system, potentially causing sensor signals to be misinterpreted or actuators being miscontrolled. Software-implemented control flow error detection techniques have existed for many years, although there is little literature about these techniques being tested on input/output-driven programs. This paper presents a hardware-in-loop-based fault injection campaign performed on a typical industrial setting, i.e. a small scale factory. Thanks to hardware-in-loop simulation, we can perform the fault injection campaign without the risk of breaking a mechanical or an electrical part. For our fault injection campaign, we considered both the unprotected control program and the version protected with our RACFED error detection technique. The results show that up to 58 % of the injected control flow errors can affect the unprotected control program in a dangerous manner. Implementing RACFED clearly lowers this percentage to less than 4 %, showing this technique can be used in industrial settings.

show abstract

An Improved Data Error Detection Technique for Dependable Embedded Software

Cited by 9 publications

References 25 publications

Soft Error Detection through Low-level Re-execution

Soft Error Detection through Low-level Re-execution

Utilizing Parity Checking to Optimize Soft Error Detection Through Low-Level Reexecution

Using Hardware-In-Loop-Based Fault Injection to Determine the Effects of Control Flow Errors in Industrial Control Programs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About