In recent years Ethernet has cought the attention of the real-time community. the main reason for this is that it has a high data troughput, 10Mbit/s and higher, and good EMI characteristics. As a protocol that might be used in real-time anvironments such as control systems for cars etc, it seems to fulfil the rquirements. TTEthernet is a TDMA extention to normal Ethnernet, designed to meet the hard deadlines required by real-time networks. This thesis describes how TTEthernet handles frames and the mathematical formulas to calculate shuffle delay of frames in such a network. Open problems related to TTEthernet are also discussed.

Debugging is an important phase in the embedded software development cycle because of its high proportion in the overall cost in the product development. Debugging is difficult for real-time applications as such programs are time-sensitive and must meet deadlines in often a resource constrained environment. A common approach for real-time systems is to monitor the execution instead of stepping through the program, because stepping will usually violate all deadline constraints. We consider a time-triggered approach for program monitoring at runtime, resulting in bounded and predictable overhead. In time-triggered execution monitoring, a monitor runs as a separate process in parallel with an application program and samples the program's state periodically to evaluate a set of properties. Applying this technique in computing systems, results in bounded and predictable overhead. However, the time-triggered approach can have high overhead depending on the granularity of the monitoring effort. To reduce this overhead, we instrument the program with markers that will require to sample less frequently and thus reduce the overhead. This leads to interesting problems of (a) where to place the markers in the code and (b) how to manipulate the markers. While related work investigates the first part, in this work, we investigate the second part. We investigate different instrumentation schemes and propose two new schemes based on bitvectors that significantly reduce the overhead for time-triggered execution monitoring. Time-triggered execution monitoring suffers from several drawbacks such as; the time-triggered monitor requires certain synchronization features at the operating system level and may suffer from various concurrency and synchronization dependencies in a real-time setting. Furthermore, the time-triggered execution monitoring scheme requires the embedded environment to provide multi-tasking features. To address the aforementioned problems, we propose a new method called time-triggered self-monitoring, where the program under inspection is instrumented, so that it self-samples its state in a periodic fashion without requiring assistance from an external monitor or an internal timer. The experimental results show that a time-triggered self-monitored program performs significantly better in terms of execution time, binary code size, and context switches when compared to the same program monitored by an external time-triggered monitor.

FlexRay is a new automotive network communication protocol for control and interconnection among ECUs (electronic control units) in the cluster. In the FlexRay protocol, a communication cycle consists of static segment and dynamic segment. The static segment is a TDMA scheme designed for transmitting time-triggered messages. Due to its determinism and reliability, it is particularly applicable to X-by-wire applications. Each static slot is allocated to a specified task and the task can transmit message during the exclusive slot. However, if the task has no message to transmit during its assigned slot, the slot cannot be used by other tasks. The overall utilization is low if the bandwidth requirement of each task is not high. To improve the system utilization, we apply the real-time scheduling techniques to devising a deterministic, static cyclic scheduling. The objective is to reduce the demand on the number of static slots needed for scheduling time-triggered tasks. Specifically, we treat the set of static slots that are in the same position in every communication cycle as an individual real-time channel. We model each task as a real-time task, specified by (Ci,Ti). It requires that for every Ti communication cycles, the system must allocate at least Ci time slots to satisfy the real-time constraint of the task. We decompose each such task into a set of subtasks, allocate them to the real-time channels and then apply the rate-monotonic scheduling algorithm to schedule the subtasks within each channel. Finally, we perform computer simulation to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposal. From the simulation results, we conclude that our proposal is able to effectively reduce the demand for the static slots under a wide range of real-time requirements.

Debugging is an important phase in the embedded software development cycle because of its high proportion in the overall cost in the product development. Debugging is difficult for real-time applications as such programs are time-sensitive and must meet deadlines in often a resource constrained environment. A common approach for real-time systems is to monitor the execution instead of stepping through the program, because stepping will usually violate all deadline constraints. We consider a time-triggered approach for program monitoring at runtime, resulting in bounded and predictable overhead. In time-triggered execution monitoring, a monitor runs as a separate process in parallel with an application program and samples the program's state periodically to evaluate a set of properties. Applying this technique in computing systems, results in bounded and predictable overhead. However, the time-triggered approach can have high overhead depending on the granularity of the monitoring effort. To reduce this overhead, we instrument the program with markers that will require to sample less frequently and thus reduce the overhead. This leads to interesting problems of (a) where to place the markers in the code and (b) how to manipulate the markers. While related work investigates the first part, in this work, we investigate the second part. We investigate different instrumentation schemes and propose two new schemes based on bitvectors that significantly reduce the overhead for time-triggered execution monitoring. Time-triggered execution monitoring suffers from several drawbacks such as; the time-triggered monitor requires certain synchronization features at the operating system level and may suffer from various concurrency and synchronization dependencies in a real-time setting. Furthermore, the time-triggered execution monitoring scheme requires the embedded environment to provide multi-tasking features. To address the aforementioned problems, we propose a new method called time-triggered self-monitoring, where the program under inspection is instrumented, so that it self-samples its state in a periodic fashion without requiring assistance from an external monitor or an internal timer. The experimental results show that a time-triggered self-monitored program performs significantly better in terms of execution time, binary code size, and context switches when compared to the same program monitored by an external time-triggered monitor.

A importância das redes de comunicação industriais em modernos sistemas de automação e controle industriais tem aumentado significativamente nos últimos anos, devido aos avanços nas áreas de processadores e softwares embarcados, que permitem o desenvolvimento de dispositivos com elevada capacidade de processamento a custos reduzidos. Estas características também são muito importantes em sistemas automotivos, visto que existe uma tendência para a substituição de sistemas mecânicos e hidráulicos em veículos e o espaço disponível para implementação é bastante reduzido. Esta substituição passa pela elaboração de complexos algoritmos de controle, os quais, quando operam sobre uma rede de comunicação, precisam considerar explicitamente os efeitos do canal de comunicação compartilhado na dinâmica do sistema em malha fechada. Este trabalho apresenta uma análise do impacto da comunicação em rede sobre sistemas de controle. Mais especificamente, analisa-se o comportamento do protocolo Flexray, recentemente desenvolvido por um consórcio de importantes empresas e que incorpora interessantes conceitos para escalonamento de mensagens síncronas e assíncronas. No trabalho foram realizados experimentos com três diferentes tipos de controladores aplicados ao estudo de caso de uma suspensão ativa, onde o sistema tem sua malha fechada sobre a rede FlexRay. / The importance of communication networks on modern automation systems has increased significantly over the last years, mostly due to advances in embedded microprocessor and software technologies, which enable the development of devices with high processing power at reduced costs. These characteristics are very important for vehicle systems, since there is nowadays a trend to replace mechanical and hydraulic systems, and the space available for implementation is limited. This replacement requires very complex control algorithms, which, when operating on a communication network, have to consider explicitly the effects introduced by the shared communication channel on the closed loop system dynamics. This work presents an analysis of the network communication impact over control systems. More specifically, it is of interest to analyse the behavior of the FlexRay protocol, which has been recently developed by a Consortium of important companies and incorporates interesting concepts of synchronous and asynchronous message scheduling. In this work, some experiments were performed with three controllers, which were developed using different methodologies, applied to the case study of an active suspension system, where the loop is closed over the FlexRay protocol.

A importância das redes de comunicação industriais em modernos sistemas de automação e controle industriais tem aumentado significativamente nos últimos anos, devido aos avanços nas áreas de processadores e softwares embarcados, que permitem o desenvolvimento de dispositivos com elevada capacidade de processamento a custos reduzidos. Estas características também são muito importantes em sistemas automotivos, visto que existe uma tendência para a substituição de sistemas mecânicos e hidráulicos em veículos e o espaço disponível para implementação é bastante reduzido. Esta substituição passa pela elaboração de complexos algoritmos de controle, os quais, quando operam sobre uma rede de comunicação, precisam considerar explicitamente os efeitos do canal de comunicação compartilhado na dinâmica do sistema em malha fechada. Este trabalho apresenta uma análise do impacto da comunicação em rede sobre sistemas de controle. Mais especificamente, analisa-se o comportamento do protocolo Flexray, recentemente desenvolvido por um consórcio de importantes empresas e que incorpora interessantes conceitos para escalonamento de mensagens síncronas e assíncronas. No trabalho foram realizados experimentos com três diferentes tipos de controladores aplicados ao estudo de caso de uma suspensão ativa, onde o sistema tem sua malha fechada sobre a rede FlexRay. / The importance of communication networks on modern automation systems has increased significantly over the last years, mostly due to advances in embedded microprocessor and software technologies, which enable the development of devices with high processing power at reduced costs. These characteristics are very important for vehicle systems, since there is nowadays a trend to replace mechanical and hydraulic systems, and the space available for implementation is limited. This replacement requires very complex control algorithms, which, when operating on a communication network, have to consider explicitly the effects introduced by the shared communication channel on the closed loop system dynamics. This work presents an analysis of the network communication impact over control systems. More specifically, it is of interest to analyse the behavior of the FlexRay protocol, which has been recently developed by a Consortium of important companies and incorporates interesting concepts of synchronous and asynchronous message scheduling. In this work, some experiments were performed with three controllers, which were developed using different methodologies, applied to the case study of an active suspension system, where the loop is closed over the FlexRay protocol.

A importância das redes de comunicação industriais em modernos sistemas de automação e controle industriais tem aumentado significativamente nos últimos anos, devido aos avanços nas áreas de processadores e softwares embarcados, que permitem o desenvolvimento de dispositivos com elevada capacidade de processamento a custos reduzidos. Estas características também são muito importantes em sistemas automotivos, visto que existe uma tendência para a substituição de sistemas mecânicos e hidráulicos em veículos e o espaço disponível para implementação é bastante reduzido. Esta substituição passa pela elaboração de complexos algoritmos de controle, os quais, quando operam sobre uma rede de comunicação, precisam considerar explicitamente os efeitos do canal de comunicação compartilhado na dinâmica do sistema em malha fechada. Este trabalho apresenta uma análise do impacto da comunicação em rede sobre sistemas de controle. Mais especificamente, analisa-se o comportamento do protocolo Flexray, recentemente desenvolvido por um consórcio de importantes empresas e que incorpora interessantes conceitos para escalonamento de mensagens síncronas e assíncronas. No trabalho foram realizados experimentos com três diferentes tipos de controladores aplicados ao estudo de caso de uma suspensão ativa, onde o sistema tem sua malha fechada sobre a rede FlexRay. / The importance of communication networks on modern automation systems has increased significantly over the last years, mostly due to advances in embedded microprocessor and software technologies, which enable the development of devices with high processing power at reduced costs. These characteristics are very important for vehicle systems, since there is nowadays a trend to replace mechanical and hydraulic systems, and the space available for implementation is limited. This replacement requires very complex control algorithms, which, when operating on a communication network, have to consider explicitly the effects introduced by the shared communication channel on the closed loop system dynamics. This work presents an analysis of the network communication impact over control systems. More specifically, it is of interest to analyse the behavior of the FlexRay protocol, which has been recently developed by a Consortium of important companies and incorporates interesting concepts of synchronous and asynchronous message scheduling. In this work, some experiments were performed with three controllers, which were developed using different methodologies, applied to the case study of an active suspension system, where the loop is closed over the FlexRay protocol.

Dans le domaine des systèmes temps-réel embarqués critiques, les méthodes de conception et de spécification et leurs outils associés doivent permettre le développement de systèmes au comportement temporel déterministe et, par conséquent, reproductible afin de garantir leur sûreté de fonctionnement. Pour atteindre cet objectif, on s’intéresse aux méthodologies de développement basées sur le paradigme Time-Triggered (TT). Dans ce contexte, nombre de propriétés et, en particulier, les contraintes temps-réel de-bout-en-bout, se voient satisfaites par construction. Toutefois, garantir la sûreté de fonctionnement de tels systèmes reste un défi. En général, les outils de développement existants n’assurent pas par construction le respect de l’intégralité des spécifications, celles-ci doivent, en général, être vérifiées à posteriori. Avec la complexité croissante des applications embarquées, celle de leur validation à posteriori devient, au mieux, un facteur majeur dans les coûts de développement et, au pire, tout simplement impossible. Il faut, donc, définir une méthode qui, tout en permettant le développement des systèmes corrects par constructions, structure et simplifie le processus de spécification. Les méthodologies de conception de haut niveau à base de composants, qui permettent la conception et la vérification des systèmes temps-réels critiques, présentent une solution ultime pour la structuration et la simplification du processus de spécification de tels systèmes.L’objectif de cette thèse est d'associer la méthodologie BIP (Behaviour-Interaction-Priority) qui est une approche de conception basée sur composants avec la plateforme d'exécution PharOS, qui est un système d'exploitation temps-réel déterministe orienté sûreté de fonctionnement. Le flot de conception proposé dans cette thèse est une approche transformationnelle qui permet de conserver les propriétés fonctionnelles des modèles originaux de BIP. Il est composé essentiellement de deux étapes. La première étape, paramétrée par un mapping de tâche défini par l'utilisateur, permet de transformer un modèle BIP en un modèle plus restreint qui représente une description haut niveau des implémentations basées sur des primitives de communication TT. La deuxième étape permet la génération du code pour la plateforme PharOS à partir de ce modèle restreint.Un ensemble d'outils a été développé dans cette thèse afin d'automatiser la plupart des étapes du flot de conception proposé. Ceci a permis de tester cette approche sur deux cas d'étude industriels ; un simulateur de vol et un relais de protection moyenne tension. Dans les deux applications, on vise à comparer les fonctionnalités du modèle BIP avec celles du modèle intermédiaire et du code généré. On fait varier les stratégies de mapping de tâche dans la première application, afin de tester leur impact sur le code généré. Dans la deuxième application, on étudie l'impact de la transformation sur le code généré en comparant quelques aspects de performance du code générer avec ceux d'une version de l'application qui a été développée manuellement. / In hard real-time embedded systems, design and specification methods and their associated tools must allow development of temporally deterministic systems to ensure their safety. To achieve this goal, we are specifically interested in methodologies based on the Time-Triggered (TT) paradigm. This paradigm allows preserving by construction number of properties, in particular, end-to-end real-time constraints. However, ensuring correctness and safety of such systems remains a challenging task. Existing development tools do not guarantee by construction specification respect. Thus, a-posteriori verification of the application is generally a must. With the increasing complexity of embedded applications, their a-posteriori validation becomes, at best, a major factor in the development costs and, at worst, simply impossible. It is necessary, therefore, to define a method that allows the development of correct-by-construction systems while simplifying the specification process.High-level component-based design frameworks that allow design and verification of hard real-time systems are very good candidates for structuring the specification process as well as verifying the high-level model.The goal of this thesis is to couple a high-level component-based design approach based on the BIP (Behaviour-Interaction-Priority) framework with a safety-oriented real-time execution platform implementing the TT approach (the PharOS Real-Time Operating System). To this end, we propose an automatic transformation process from BIPmodels into applications for the target platform (i.e. PharOS).The process consists in a two-step semantics-preserving transformation. The first step transforms a BIP model coupled to a user-defined task mapping into a restricted one, which lends itself well to an implementation based on TT communication primitives. The second step transforms the resulting model into the TT implementation provided by the PharOS RTOS.We provide a tool-flow that automates most of the steps of the proposed approach and illustrate its use on an industrial case study for a flight Simulator application and a medium voltage protection relay application. In both applications, we compare functionalities of both original, intermediate and final model in order to confirm the correctness of the transformation. For the first application, we study the impact of the task mapping on the generated implementation. And for the second application, we study the impact of the transformation on some performance aspects compared to a manually written version.

<p>Embedded computer systems are used as control systems in many products, such as VCRs, digital cameras, washing machines, automobiles, airplanes, etc. As the complexity of embedded applications grows and time-to-market of the products they are used in reduces, designing reliable systems satisfying multiple require-ments is a great challenge. Successful design, nowadays, cannot be performed without good design tools based on powerful design methodologies. These tools should explore different design alternatives to find the best one and do that at high abstraction levels to manage the complexity and reduce the design time.</p><p>A design is specified using models. Different models are used at different de-sign stages and abstraction levels. For example, the functionality of an application can be specified using hierarchical functional blocks. However, for such design tasks as mapping and scheduling, a lower-level flat model of interacting processes is needed. Deriving this model from a higher-level model of functional blocks is the main focus of this thesis. Our objective is to develop efficient strategies for such derivations, aiming at producing a process graph specification, which helps the synthesis tasks to find schedulable implementations. We proposed several strategies and evaluated them experimentally.</p>

<p>Day by day, we are witnessing a considerable increase in number and range of applications which entail the use of embedded computer systems. This increase is closely followed by the growth in complexity of applications controlled by embedded systems, often involving strict timing requirements, like in the case of safety-critical applications. Efficient design of such complex systems requires powerful and accurate tools that support the designer from the early phases of the design process.</p><p>This thesis focuses on the study of real-time distributed embedded systems and, in particular, we concentrate on a certain aspect of their real-time behavior and implementation: the time-triggered (TT) and event-triggered (ET) nature of the applications and of the communication protocols. Over the years, TT and ET systems have been usually considered independently, assuming that an application was entirely ET or TT. However, nowadays, the growing complexity of current applications has generated the need for intermixing TT and ET functionality. Such a development has led us to the identification of several interesting problems that are approached in this thesis. First, we focus on the elaboration of a holistic schedulability analysis for heterogeneous TT/ET task sets which interact according to a communication protocol based on both static and dynamic messages. Second, we use the holistic schedulability analysis in order to guide decisions during the design process. We propose a design optimisation heuristic that partitions the task-set and the messages into the TT and ET domains, maps and schedules the partitioned functionality, and optimises the communication protocol parameters. Experiments have been carried out in order to measure the efficiency of the proposed techniques.</p> / Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2003:21.