Dependable and energy-efficient cyber-physical systems by graceful degradation

Abstract

Factory automation, civil infrastructure monitoring, medical wearables, process- and environmental control are essential applications of computer systems in a modern society. By integration of computer systems with the environment, society transfers major trust to such cyber-physical systems, which are required to dependable deliver their expected service. Designing dependable computer systems is a challenge since the inception of the computer, but today’s applications limit one major resource required for dependability: Energy. Where early dependable systems could spend large energy budgets, today’s cyber-physical systems are often battery powered and required to be energy- efficient. To enable their widespread adoption in society, we developed a design approach which integrates low-power with dependable system design. We leverage the energy efficiency of modern commodity components by safeguarding them with temporal redundancy. The resulting cyber-physical systems are energy-efficient and yet dependable, and their real-time guarantees empower the integration of mixed-criticality functions with verifiable quality of service guarantees. Our static, design-time and certification-friendly approach is a breeze for designers and certification authorities, as no assumptions about hardware features and error probabilities are necessary, which allows application- and cost optimal component selection.