Reconfiguration of Embedded Control Systems (RECS)

Context

The new generations of embedded systems are addressing new criteria as flexibility and agility. To reduce their cost, these systems should be changed and adapted to their environment without disturbances. Several interesting academic and industrial research works have been made last years to develop reconfigurable embedded systems. We distinguish in these works two reconfiguration policies: static and dynamic reconfigurations where static reconfigurations are applied off-line to apply changes before the system cold start, whereas dynamic reconfigurations are applied dynamically at run-time. Two cases exist in the last policy: manual reconfigurations applied by users and automatic reconfigurations applied by Intelligent Agents. The planned project is interested in Reconfigurable Embedded Control Systems following the component-based approach. Different component-based technologies and Architecture Description Languages (abbr. ADL) have been proposed in recent years to reuse already developed components and to follow modular approaches of specifications and verifications.

General Goals

The project’s main goal is to develop a complete standard environment to be a reference for Design, Verification, Scheduling, Code Generation, Implementation and Simulation of Reconfigurable Component-based Embedded Control Systems. We want to be independent of any technology and/or ADL by defining a general concept of Software Component that can (if possible) be similar to the concept of Automation Component defined in the Project MEDEIA (www.medeia.eu). We want also to consider in this project all reconfiguration forms: Static, Manual and Automatic scenarios to change the behavior of the whole system. Therefore, new techniques should be applied to allow off-line/on-line design/re-design of the system’s architecture. Each composition of components that implement the system after any (static or dynamic) reconfiguration scenario should satisfy several constraints. Therefore the verification of the reconfigurable architecture is mandatory to guarantee a safe behavior of the whole system. The project plans also new techniques for verification and scheduling of reconfigurable components implementing the considered architecture. The next goal to be addressed is the implementation of the whole architecture where we should take care of techniques allowing off-line/on-line modifications of the system’s behavior. The final step that should be addressed is the optimal simulation of a reconfigurable architecture where techniques should be proposed for verifications of all reconfiguration scenarios.

Parts

  • Work-Task1 (WT1): Software Components for Embedded Systems
  • Work-Task2 (WT2): Design – Modelling of Reconfigurable Software Architectures
  • Work-Task3 (WT3): Verification of Reconfigurable Systems
  • Work-Task4 (WT4): Real-Time & Low-Power Scheduling of Reconfigurable Architectures
  • Work-Task5 (WT5): Code Generation of Reconfigurable Systems
  • Work-Task6 (WT6): Optimal Simulations of Reconfigurable Architectures

Expected Results

The project expects a complete tested environment allowing the design of software components to implement Embedded Control Systems in different possible (static, manual, automatic) reconfiguration scenarios. It should provide services for verifications of such components to meet several constraints. The environment should provide also other services for real-time and low-power scheduling of reconfigurable components. The (static & dynamic) code generation of a distributed architecture should be supported by the environment that should provide also for users optimal simulations of software components, before their final deployment.



Project’s Duration

3 years

Contacts


ICTICA – newest O3neida Member

The International Company for Technologies of Information, Communication and Automation (ICTICA) is an international company for new advanced technologies of automated and embedded systems to be used in different fields like in Industry, Medicine, Agriculture, Transport, Defense, or also for Environmental Protections or for Power Managements. It produces new hardware and software innovative technical solutions for Original Equipment Manufacturers, tier-one suppliers as well as smaller companies developing high-tech products. Based on well-qualified theoretical backgrounds and rich previous experiences, ICTICA offers services, assistances and consultancies in the specification, analysis, design, co-design, verification, validation, code generation, and optimized simulation of automated and embedded systems. Thanks to its extensive experience and well-qualified members, ICTICA delivers in time high quality engineering and correct research works. ICTICA commits itself also to organize scientific and industrial meetings with valuable partners to analyze new optimized solutions for actual serious problems of automated and embedded systems, and to discuss new challenges and future perspectives of our community. ICTICA commits also itself to periodically publish with valuable partners different research books that contain new theories and important contributions to be useful for people in industry. ICTICA is a member of O3neida (www.oooneida.org).