Application-level fault tolerance in real-time embedded systems

Afonso, Francisco; Tavares, Adriano; Montenegro, Sérgio

doi:10.1109/sies.2008.4577690

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Besides the general interest in fault-tolerance middleware for distributed embedded systems, this topic became increasingly relevant for the space domain in recent years. Afonso et al for example, developed a framework upon a real-time embedded system for spacecraft [1]. The goal of the framework is to provide the applications with fault-tolerance mechanisms like Recovery Blocks (RB), Distributed Recovery Blocks (DRB), TMR and N-version programming (NVP).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to the lack of a protective magnetic field, the circuits are directly exposed to cosmic rays. This radiation, entering the device, can lead to a series of events in the electronics, called soft errors 1 . These in turn can trigger a multitude of different problems in the operative software of the spacecraft up to the complete loss of the system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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ScOSA system software: the reliable and scalable middleware for a heterogeneous and distributed on-board computer architecture

et al. 2021

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Designing on-board computers (OBC) for future space missions is determined by the trade-off between reliability and performance. Space applications with higher computational demands are not supported by currently available, state-of-the-art, space-qualified computing hardware, since their requirements exceed the capabilities of these components. Such space applications include Earth observation with high-resolution cameras, on-orbit real-time servicing, as well as autonomous spacecraft and rover missions on distant celestial bodies. An alternative to state-of-the-art space-qualified computing hardware is the use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components for the OBC. Not only are these components cheap and widely available, but they also achieve high performance. Unfortunately, they are also significantly more vulnerable to errors induced by radiation than space-qualified components. The ScOSA (Scalable On-board Computing for Space Avionics) Flight Experiment project aims to develop an OBC architecture which avoids this trade-off by combining space-qualified radiation-hardened components (the reliable computing nodes, RCNs) together with COTS components (the high performance nodes, HPNs) into a single distributed system. To abstract this heterogeneous architecture for the application developers, we are developing a middleware for the aforementioned OBC architecture. Besides providing an monolithic abstraction of the distributed system, the middleware shall also enhance the architecture by providing additional reliability and fault tolerance. In this paper, we present the individual components comprising the middleware, alongside the features the middleware offers. Since the ScOSA Flight Experiment project is a successor of the OBC-NG and the ScOSA projects, its middleware is also a further development of the existing middleware. Therefore, we will present and discuss our contributions and plans for enhancement of the middleware in the course of the current project. Finally, we will present first results for the scalability of the middleware, which we obtained by conducting software-in-the-loop experiments of different sized scenarios.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ScOSA system software: the reliable and scalable middleware for a heterogeneous and distributed on-board computer architecture

et al. 2021

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“…A software wrapper is employed as middleware to protect memory accesses against faults by adding redundancy. Afonso et al [2008] developed a framework with a focus on multithreading. It provides a scheduler and a set of fault tolerance strategies.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the fault resilience of an H.264 decoder using static analysis methods

Schmoll

Heinig

Marwedel

et al. 2013

ACM Trans. Embed. Comput. Syst.

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Fault tolerance rapidly evolves into one of the most significant design objectives for embedded systems due to reduced semiconductor structures and supply voltages. However, resource-constrained systems cannot afford traditional error correction for overhead and cost reasons. New methods are required to sustain acceptable service quality in case of errors while avoiding crashes.We present a flexible fault-tolerance approach that is able to select correction actions depending on error semantics using application annotations and static analysis approaches. We verify the validity of our approach by analyzing the vulnerability and improving the reliability of an H.264 decoder using flexible error handling. ACM Reference Format:Schmoll, F., Heinig, A., Marwedel, P., and Engel, M. 2013. Improving the fault resilience of an H.264 decoder using static analysis methods.

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“…The FTF described here is an object-oriented version of the framework for fault tolerant (FT) systems described in [23]. It is written in C++ for the BOSS distributed real-time operating system, to provide fault-tolerance for application threads.…”

Section: A Ft Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framework Characteristics - A Starting Point for Addressing Reuse Difficulties

Lopes

Afonso

Tavares

et al. 2009

2009 Fourth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances

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Frameworks are a fundamental reuse technique, but they are often hard to learn and reuse. Documentation approaches and tools supporting instantiation have been the main research subjects for addressing framework reuse difficulties. This paper introduces a new approach that starts from a more fundamental level -framework characteristics. These are shaped by programming and design techniques, and their impact on reuse difficulties is analysed. From there, a framework model making a congruent combination of characteristics is defined. The results are demonstrated with a case study framework. Both the problem analysis and the proposed solution are relevant for the conference topics, namely framework reuse and design methods.

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Application-level fault tolerance in real-time embedded systems

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

ScOSA system software: the reliable and scalable middleware for a heterogeneous and distributed on-board computer architecture

ScOSA system software: the reliable and scalable middleware for a heterogeneous and distributed on-board computer architecture

Improving the fault resilience of an H.264 decoder using static analysis methods

Framework Characteristics - A Starting Point for Addressing Reuse Difficulties

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