Networked embedded systems

Corso di Sistemi in Tempo Reale
Laurea in Ingegneria dell‘Automazione
a.a. 2008-2009
Paolo Pagano ([email protected])
Course Outline (1/2)
• First day (23rd)
– Basics of FSM (slides by prof. Lipari)
– The Uppaal platform
– Formal verification
• Second day (24th)
– FSM implementation in C (slides by prof. Di Natale)
– A case study
– Real Hardware demonstration
Paolo Pagano - RT Systems
2/15
Course Outline (2/2)
• Third day (30th)
– The OSEK standard
– The ERIKA real-time kernel
• Fourth day (31st)
– A FSM case study
– Discussion
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What is an Embedded System?
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Where are ESs?
Embedded computing systems are becoming pervasive in our
society (more than 109 units/year):
 Robotics
 Flight control systems
 Plant control
 Automotive
 Consumer electronics
 Multimedia systems
 Sensor/Actor
Networks
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5/15
People say …
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Criticality
QoS management
digital tv
soft
High performance
firm
Timing constraints
Safety critical
hard
Common features
• In these diversified domains some shared
features can be identified:
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Dedicated function (vs general-purpose computers)
Reactive / Interactive
Real-time
Constraints on several metrics: cost, power,
performance, noise, weight, size, flexibility,
maintainability, correctness, safety, time-to-market
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Standalone devices?
• Networked embedded systems
– System composed of various components (sensors,
controllers, actuators) interconnected through a
network
– Cabling problem, mobility requirements ==> wireless
• Wireless Sensor Networks:
– Multitude of application scenarios
• Environmental monitoring
• Surveillance
• Telemedicine, health care, industrial plant control, multi-view
vision
• …
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Why WSN?
Buzzwords:
• ubiquity
• pervasiveness
• Wireless
• mobility
• smart spaces
• M2M
• distributed
• embedded
• dynamic
• energy
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Design of ESs
• Multidisciplinarity
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Application context / domain
Embedded electronics / sensors
Embedded manufacturing
Control Systems Theory
Digital processing
Real-Time Operating Systems
Embedded Communications (Wired, Wireless)
• Constraints
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Research directions (1/2)
• Architectures
– Towards Network-on-a-Chip (NoC) systems
– Traditional SW programming does not adapt well to massivelly
parallel, distributed and concurrent hardware
– Towards techniques for global design optimization w.r.t. some
design metrics, e.g. Energy
• Software
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Real-time, lightweight middleware with QoS
Portability, multi-processor
Model-driven (higher level) SW development
Verification / validation through formal methods
Standardization
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Research directions (2/2)
• Communications
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Power-aware communications
Lightweight network stacks
Heterogeneous communications
Mobile, home, Internet
Ad-hoc networking: self-discovery and organization
Multi-(interconnected-)device functionality
• Peripherals
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Cost-effective sensors/actuators
Working in harschy environment
Mechanically / thermally robust
Low power (power scavenging)
Fail-safe
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What can we do in this wide domain?
(1/2)
• We can naively design an Embedded System
making use of some basic knowledge of Finite
State Machine theory;
• We can simulate the ES making use of the
Uppaal environment (demonstration use only for
licensing issues);
• We can implement our SW in Real-Hardware
using fully customized FLEX boards.
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What can we do in this wide domain?
(2/2)
• We can introduce real-time kernels to support
multi-sensing and multi-programming activities;
• We will work upon an existing demo application
developed for ERIKA real-time kernels;
• We will see how to fully exploit the power of a
programmable MCU.
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