Dependable and predictable time-triggered Ethernet networks with COTS components

TTEthernet is a cross-industry communication standard that supports the integration of predictable time-triggered communication and event-triggered standard Ethernet traffic. This paper explores the ability of extending the firmware of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) routers in order to support TTEthernet. Thereby, we can achieve a significant cost reduction, upgrade existing infrastructures and make field-failure rates of COTS devices available for certification. Based on a generic model of a COTS router, we introduce four methods for extending a COTS router with support for time-triggered and event-triggered message exchanges. The extended COTS router redirects time-triggered messages within pre-planed time intervals, while also processing event-triggered messages when no time-triggered message are scheduled. We achieve temporal predictability and low jitter by minimizing the effect of event-triggered messages onto the timing of time-triggered messages. Furthermore, experimental results from a prototype implementation provide insight into the performance differences between a COTS router and dedicated hardware.     

车载FlexRay网络调度算法综述

FlexRay是为车载网络系统中高速率通信需求而开发的网络通信标准,将事件触发和时间触发2种方式相结合,以满足汽车安全性和可靠性的需求。由于其良好的发展前景,得到了学界和企业界的广泛关注,在提高网络利用率和可靠性方面开展了很多研究。而消息调度算法在提高网络性能方面起着至关重要的作用,为此,从静态段消息调度、动态段消息调度和CAN/FlexRay混合网关消息调度等3个方面对近年来消息调度相关研究进行了详细的总结和分析,并指出了当前研究的不足和未来可能的研究方向。     

基于时间触发机制的实时通信架构研究与设计

为解决多核架构分布式系统的硬实时问题,在Barrelfish基础框架上设计并实现一个时间触发实时操作系统的消息通信服务,使其可应用于SMP系统、NoC网络和其它支持时间触发的网络中。为解决Multikernel无法使用并行多线程的缺点,提出一种基于Barrelfish的动态SMP子系统,减少整个系统内独立分区的数目,降低系统设计和调度的难度,使实时应用可在Multikernel架构上充分利用硬件并行能力,设计相应的消息调度表生成算法。实验结果表明了该通信框架的可行性。     

COTS Switch工业以太网实时调度算法

针对基于商用现成组件技术(Commercial Off-The-Shelf,COTS)的交换式以太网不能满足工业数据通信的实时性要求问题,给出了改进的FTT(Flexible Time-Triggered communication paradigm)网络调度模型,提出了新的周期性实时消息链路可调度性优化判定方法,在此基础上设计了一种基于EDF(Earliest Deadline First)的实时调度算法。算法通过对网络消息流量进行有效控制防止交换机缓冲区溢出,同时充分发挥网络在同一时间存在多个并行传输链路的优势,提高了网络实时性。仿真实验表明该算法在提高网络的聚合带宽、减小消息的平均等待延时和丢失率方面均有明显的优势。     

Mixed-triggered communication with limited elastic slot boundaries

Time-triggered systems provide dependable and deterministic communication based on strict time boundaries for tasks and messages. On the other hand, event-triggered communication is less strict on requirements and more flexible, but it is difficult to provide fault isolation. Thus, the combination of time-triggered and event-triggered communication is desirably extending a time-triggered communication system by a dynamic property. This paper improves a novel mixed-triggered communication approach based on ESBs which adds limited delay tolerance to an otherwise strict real-time communication. The presented approach overcomes the problem of delayed respectively missing messages by adding fail-operational behavior to the ESB-based communication. This is achieved by extending the basic mechanism using additional fault-tolerant features. The presented mechanism allows the system to stay operable even when messages occasionally violate their planned slot boundaries and provides fault isolation for timing violations beyond a predefined tolerance budget. The introduced fault-tolerant features are analyzed via Monte-Carlo simulations where the resulting data throughput is compared to two straightforward hard real-time communication approaches. As our results show, the proposed guards enable the system to handle extended message reception delays while, compared to strictly bounded communication, having a better performance of successfully transmitted messages.     

Optimized implementation of synchronous models on industrial LTTA systems

Synchronous models are used to specify embedded systems functions in a clear and unambiguous way and allow verification of properties using formal methods. The implementation of a synchronous specification on a distributed architecture must preserve the model semantics to retain the verification results. Globally synchronized time-triggered architectures offer the simplest implementation path, but can be inefficient or simply unavailable. In past work, we defined a mapping of synchronous models on a general class of distributed asynchronous architectures, for which the only requirement is a lower bound on the rate of activation of tasks. In this paper, we set tighter requirements on task execution rates, and we include a realistic modeling of communication delays, task scheduling delays and schedulability conditions, discussing the timing characteristics of an implementation on a system with a Controller Area Network (CAN). Next, the semantics preservation conditions are formulated as constraints in an architecture optimization problem that defines a feasible task model with respect to timing constraints. An automotive case study shows the applicability of the approach and provides insight on the software design elements that are critical for a feasible implementation.     

Try-once-discard scheduling for stochastic networked control systems

In practical networked control systems (NCS), such as smart grids, cooperative robotics, and sensor networks, often multiple control applications share a communication infrastructure, requiring a smart and efficient scheduling mechanism to coordinate the access to the capacity-limited communication medium. In this article we consider the problem of event-based scheduling design for NCSs consisting of multiple control loops over a shared communication medium. We extend the notion of Try-Once-Discard (TOD), which is one of the basic deterministic event-based scheduling protocols for resource constrained NCSs, to the case of multiple stochastic control systems coupled via a shared communication medium subject to capacity limitation and stochastic packet delivery failure. Showing that the overall network-induced error is a homogeneous Markov chain in our stochastic set-up, we first study stability properties of such networked systems under the TOD scheduling scheme employing the concepts of stochastic stability. Then, we derive sufficient stability conditions under the TOD rule assuming that the communication channel is not ideal, i.e. a scheduled data packet for transmission might be lost in the communication channel with a non-zero probability. Furthermore, we derive analytic performance bounds by finding uniform upper-bounds for an average quadratic cost function. The numerical simulations are performed for variety of system parameters and NCS set-ups to strengthen our stability claim as well as illustrating performance bounds. Additionally, we show that the TOD scheduling rule outperforms the conventional time-triggered, and uniform and non-uniform random channel access arbitration mechanisms, in terms of efficient coordination of channel access in stochastic NCSs.     

Improving the Accuracy of Scheduling Analysis Applied to Distributed Systems Computing Minimal Response Times and Reducing Jitter

A well-established approachto the verification of end-to-end response times for distributed,hard real-time systems is an integrated scheduling analysis ofboth task processing and message communication. Hitherto, publishedanalyses have been confined to the computation of worst-casebounds only and best-case response times have been ignored, assumedto be zero or treated approximately. However, there are compellingreasons for computing both upper and lower bounds on responsetimes, not only to allow the verification of best-case performancebut also to improve the accuracy of the overall analysis. Thispaper describes a precise best-case execution time analysis whichreduces jitter and extends distributed scheduling analysis toyield more accurate upper and lower bounds on system responsetimes. The analysis is combined with existing results for worst-caseresponses in a single scheduling algorithm to compute both upperand lower bounds on end-to-end response in distributed systems.A design tool has been developed to automatethe analysis and support the performance verification of diversereal-time systems composed of tasks executing on multiple processorswhich communicate using the Controller Area Network (CAN) fieldbus.     

Communication infrastructure in distributed scheduling

The emergence of distributed artificial intelligent (DAI) introduced a new approach to solve scheduling problems by a set of scheduling systems that interact with each other in the problem-solving process. In this paper, we describe a communication infrastructure to handle connection and communication between distributed Internet scheduling systems for distributed applications. First, we present an agent model of distributed scheduling systems where agents can communicate and coordinate activities with each other via an agent communication language. Then, we define the syntax and semantics for the agent communication languages, and negotiation mechanism. Following that, we discuss the design and development of the prototype for the multi-agent scheduling systems. We conclude with a discussion of communication issues for heterogeneous agent-based scheduling systems to solve distributed scheduling problems.     

CAN总线及其高层网络协议在无人飞行器航空电子系统中的应用

为了提高无人飞行器航空电子系统的工作效率,提出利用CAN总线进行航空电子系统内部的数据传输;分析了CAN总线的特点,并指出了CAN总线作为无人飞行器航空电子系统总线的优缺点,介绍了CAN总线高层网络协议CANaerospace的报文类型和结构、定时触发的总线调度及对系统的冗余支持等方面优于基本CAN总线协议的各项特点,在此基础上,给出了基于CAN总线和CANaerospace协议的无人飞行器航空电子系统设计实例.实践证明,该设计能够满足无人飞行器数据传输可靠性、实时性等方面的要求.