Collaborative Research: CSR-EHS: Towards an Integrated Framework for Low Power Reliable Real-Time Embedded Systems

随着电池供电的便携式/嵌入式设备的激增，有效的能量管理变得极其重要，最近研究界开发了各种能量管理技术。然而，考虑到与规模扩大的技术规模和减少的设计余量相关的不断增加的瞬时故障率，迫切需要在这些框架中纳入可靠性要求。这对于安全性要求很高的实时嵌入式系统尤为重要。最近的报告表明，广泛流行的能量管理技术动态电压和频率调节(DVFS)加剧了这一问题，动态电压和频率调节(DVFS)对系统可靠性产生了令人震惊的负面影响，因为在低电源电压下运行会增加暂态故障率。首先，发展了一种考虑辐射、温度和电磁干扰影响的DVFS系统的通用暂态故障模型。其次，该项目专注于操作系统级的算法和工具，正在为不同类型的嵌入式和实时系统开发一个集成的、可靠性感知的电源管理框架。该框架能够对能源节约和总体可靠性进行权衡分析。还研究了通过在运行时监控系统的执行来动态提高系统性能的自适应方案。该项目预计将产生重大的技术影响，因为众所周知，能效和可靠性是下一代实时和嵌入式系统的基本要求。

With the proliferation of the battery-powered portable/embedded devices, effective energy management became extremely important and the research community has recently developed various energy management techniques. However, there is an urgent need to incorporate reliability requirements to these frameworks, in view of the ever-increasing transient fault rates linked to scaled technology sizes and reduced design margins. This is particularly important for safety-critical real-time embedded systems. Recent reports indicating that the problem is exacerbated by the widely-popular energy management technique, dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), which has an alarmingly negative effect on system reliability because of increased transient fault rates associated with operation at low supply voltages.This project undertakes a comprehensive study of the interplay between energy management and transient fault recovery in real-time embedded systems. First, a generalized transient fault model for DVFS-enabled systems is being developed that considers the effects of radiation, temperature and electromagnetic interference. Second, focusing on operating-system-level algorithms and tools, the project is developing an integrated, reliability-aware power management framework for different types of embedded and real-time systems. The framework enables a trade-off analysis for energy savings and aggregate reliability to be carried out. Adaptive schemes that dynamically improve the system performance by monitoring system's execution at run-time are also investigated. The project is expected to have a substantial technological impact as energy-efficiency and reliability are known to be fundamental requirements for next generation real-time and embedded systems.