Collaborative Research: CSR/EHS: Building Physically Safe Embedded Systems

研究领域中一些最令人兴奋的网络技术涉及与物理世界交互的复杂数字系统。例如远程手术、纳米结构的物理操作、自动(地面和空中)车辆旅行以及空间和陆地探索。由于这些应用程序直接与物理世界交互，因此必须确保它们的物理安全。该项目正在开发一个全面的正式框架，用于生产用于网络物理系统的控制器，并提供其物理安全性的机器可检查证据。该项目汇集了控制理论、语言设计、程序验证、程序生成、软件工程以及实时和嵌入式系统的思想，构建了一个可应用于具有挑战性的应用的框架。该框架促进了生产嵌入式控制器的高效、严格的工程流程，不仅包括控制器本身的显式模型，还包括控制器运行的物理环境、所需的稳定性条件、将在其上运行的平台以及相关的实时约束。该项目的结果正在远程手术应用的背景下进行演示和评估。莱斯大学机械工程系的机电一体化和触觉接口实验室目前正在开发这一应用程序。

Some of the most exciting cyber technologies on the research horizon involve sophisticated digital systems that interact with the physical world. Examples include remote surgery, physical manipulation of nano-structures, autonomous (ground and air) vehicular travel, and space and terrestrial exploration. Because such applications interact directly with the physical world, it is imperative their physical safety be assured. This project is developing a comprehensive formal framework for producing controllers for cyber-physical systems, with machine checkable proofs of their physical safety. The project brings together ideas from control theory, language design, program verification, program generation, software engineering, and real-time and embedded systems to build a framework that can be applied to challenging applications. The framework promotes an efficient, rigorous engineering process for producing embedded controllers, incorporating explicit models not only of the controller itself, but also of the physical context in which it operates, the required stability conditions, the platform on which it will run, and the associated real-time constraints. The results of the project are being demonstrated and evaluated in the context of a tele-surgery application. This application is currently being developed at the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Rice University.