Contract-based design of control protocols for safety-critical cyber-physical systems

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

Bresolin

et al. 2015

Proc. IEEE

Self Cite

138

Abstract-We introduce a platform-based design methodology that uses contracts to specify and abstract the components of a cyber-physical system (CPS), and provide formal support to the entire CPS design flow. The design is carried out as a sequence of refinement steps from a high-level specification to an implementation built out of a library of components at the lower level. We review formalisms and tools that can be used to specify, analyze or synthesize the design at different levels of abstractions. For each level, we highlight how the contract operations can be concretely computed as well as the research challenges that should be faced to fully implement them. We illustrate our approach on the design of embedded controllers for aircraft electric power distribution systems.

Section: Aircraft Power Distribution Design Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 (b). Examples of DSL constructs supporting the above requirements, and their translation into mixed integer-linear constraints and temporal logic formulas, to capture different levels of abstractions, can be found in the above mentioned publication [14] and other related works [108], [76].…”

Section: A Top-level Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Platform-Based Design Methodology With Contracts and Related Tools for the Design of Cyber-Physical Systems

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

Bresolin

et al. 2015

Proc. IEEE

Self Cite

138

“…Examples of application of A/G contracts have only been recently demonstrated in the automotive [5] and consumer electronics [26] domains. The use of A/G contracts for control design in combination with platform-based design (PBD) [30] was advocated in [25,31], while in [27,24,10], a methodology was introduced that used contracts to integrate heterogeneous modeling and analysis frameworks for synthesis and optimization of CPS architectures and control protocols. The design flow was demonstrated on a real-life example of industrial interest, namely the design of system topology and supervisory control for aircraft electric power systems (EPS).…”

Section: A Supply-following Scenario For Smart Buildingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [27,24], we introduced a design methodology that addresses the complexity and heterogeneity of cyber-physical systems by using assume-guarantee contracts to formalize the design process and enable realization of control protocols in a hierarchical and compositional manner. Given the architecture of the physical plant to be controlled, the design is carried out as a sequence of refinement steps from an initial specification to a final implementation, including synthesis from requirements and mapping of higher-level functional and non-functional models into a set of candidate solutions built out of a library of components at the lower level.…”

Section: Design Flowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Buildings in the Smart Grid: Contract-Based Design of an Integrated Energy Management System

Maasoumy

Cyber Physical Systems Approach to Smart Electric Power Grid

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

2015

Self Cite

In a supply-following "smart" grid scenario, buildings can exploit remotely controllable thermostats and "smart" meters to communicate with energy providers, trade energy in real-time and offer frequency regulation services, by leveraging the flexibility in the energy consumption of their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The realization of such a scenario is, however, strongly dependent on our ability to radically re-think the way both the grid and the building control algorithms are designed. In this work, we regard the grid as an integrated, distributed, cyber-physical system, and propose a compositional framework for the deployment of an optimal supply-following strategy. We use the concept of assume-guarantee contracts to formalize the requirements of the grid and the building subsystem as well as their interface. At the building level, such formalization leads to the development of an optimal control mechanism to determine the HVAC energy flexibility while maximizing the monetary incentive for it. At the grid level, it allows formulating a model predictive control scheme to optimally control the ancillary service power flow from buildings, while integrating constraints such as ramping rates of ancillary service providers, maximum available ancillary power, and load forecast information. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology and the improvements brought by the proposed control strategy with respect to the state of the art.

“…Examples of application of A/G contracts have only been recently demonstrated in the automotive [5] and consumer electronics [12] domains. The use of A/G contracts for control design in combination with PBD has been advocated in [16], while in [13,11], a PBD methodology is first introduced that uses contracts to integrate heterogeneous modeling and analysis frameworks for synthesis and optimization of CPS architectures and control protocols. The design flow is demonstrated on a real-life example of industrial interest, namely the design of system topology and supervisory control for aircraft electric power systems (EPS).…”

Section: Platform-based Design With Contractsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Let’s Get Physical: Computer Science Meets Systems

From Programs to Systems. The Systems Perspective in Computing

Sangiovanni‐Vincentelli

2014

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Abstract. In cyber-physical systems (CPS) computing, networking and control (typically regarded as the "cyber" part of the system) are tightly intertwined with mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical or biological processes (the "physical" part). The increasing sophistication and heterogeneity of these systems requires radical changes in the way senseand-control platforms are designed to regulate them. In this paper, we highlight some of the design challenges due to the complexity and heterogeneity of CPS. We argue that such challenges can be addressed by leveraging concepts that have been instrumental in fostering electronic design automation while dealing with complexity in VLSI system design. Based on these concepts, we introduce a design methodology whereby platform-based design is combined with assume-guarantee contracts to formalize the design process and enable realization of CPS architectures and control software in a hierarchical and compositional manner. We demonstrate our approach on a prototype design of an aircraft electric power system. Keywords: Cyber-physical systems, embedded systems, VLSI systems, electronic design automation, platform-based design, contract-based design, assume-guarantee contracts, aircraft electric power system. Emerging Information Technology TrendsThe emerging information technology scenario features a large number of new applications which go beyond the traditional "compute" or "communicate" functions. The majority of these applications build on distributed sense and control systems destined to run on highly heterogeneous platforms, combining large, high-performance compute clusters (the infrastructure core or "cloud") with broad classes of mobiles, in turn surrounded by even larger swarms of microscopic sensors [16]. Such cyber-physical systems (CPS) [19,8,6] are characterized by the tight integration of computation with mechanical, electrical, and chemical processes: networks monitor and control the physical processes, usually with feedback loops where physics affects computation and vice versa.CPS have the potential to radically influence how we deal with a broad range of crucial problems facing our society today, from national security and safety, to energy management, efficient transportation, and affordable health