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

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.