Detlef Scholle

UML-Based Development of Embedded Real-Time Software on Multi-Core in Practice: Lessons Learned and Future Perspectives

IEEE Access, 2016

Model-driven engineering has got a foothold in industry as an effective way to tame the complexit... more Model-driven engineering has got a foothold in industry as an effective way to tame the complexity of modern software, which is meant to run on embedded systems with real-time constraints by promoting abstraction, in terms of prescriptive models, and automation, in terms of model manipulations. In the plethora of modeling languages, the unified modeling language (UML) has emerged and established itself as a de facto standard in industry, the most widely used architectural description language and an ISO/IEC standard. In the SMARTCore project, we have provided solutions for the UML-based development of software to run on multicore embedded real-time systems with the specific focus of automating the generation of executable code and the optimization of task allocation based on a unique combination of model-based and execution-based mechanisms. In this paper, we describe the lessons learned in the research work carried out within SMARTCore and provide a set of perspectives that we consider to be highly relevant for the forthcoming future of this research area to enable a wider adoption of UML-based development in industry in general, and in the multicore embedded real-time domain in particular. INDEX TERMS Model-driven engineering, UML, ALF, task allocation optimization, embedded, real-time, code generation.

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Evaluating Edge Computing and Compression for Remote Cuff-Less Blood Pressure Monitoring

Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks, Dec 26, 2022

Remote health monitoring systems play an important role in the healthcare sector. Edge computing ... more Remote health monitoring systems play an important role in the healthcare sector. Edge computing is a key enabler for realizing these systems, where it is required to collect big data while providing real-time guarantees. In this study, we focus on remote cuff-less blood pressure (BP) monitoring through electrocardiogram (ECG) as a case study to evaluate the benefits of edge computing and compression. First, we investigate the state-of-the-art algorithms for BP estimation and ECG compression. Second, we develop a system to measure the ECG, estimate the BP, and store the results in the cloud with three different configurations: (i) estimation in the edge, (ii) estimation in the cloud, and (iii) estimation in the cloud with compressed transmission. Third, we evaluate the three approaches in terms of application latency, transmitted data volume, and power usage. In experiments with batches of 64 ECG samples, the edge computing approach has reduced average application latency by 15%, average power usage by 19%, and total transmitted volume by 85%, confirming that edge computing improves system performance significantly. Compressed transmission proved to be an alternative when network bandwidth is limited and edge computing is impractical.

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Cooperative safety critical CPS platooning in SafeCOP

This paper presents the platooning research within the Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems us... more This paper presents the platooning research within the Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication (SafeCOP) project. Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems (CO-CPS) using wireless communication and having multiple stakeholders, dynamic system definitions (openness), and unpredictable operating environments, are the main application of SafeCOP. In addition to safety assurance methods and tools, SafeCOP devises a runtime manager architecture that detects irregular operation, hence, prompting a safe degraded mode in case of need. SafeCOP lays a safety and security umbrella over the usage of current wireless technologies, contributes to new standards and regulations by providing scientifically validated solutions to establish standards which also addresses cooperation and systemof-systems issues. SafeCOP addresses several use cases that solve customer related problems. However, in this paper we will present a use case that extract generic principles from the combination of the previous use cases to stimulate the European collaboration around the project objectives, and to collect general requirements for the SafeCOP solution, applicable across all the areas considered. We consider a CO-CPS composed of two or more systems moving in a platoon while cooperating in a safe function.

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Evaluating Edge Computing and Compression for Remote Cuff-Less Blood Pressure Monitoring

Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks

Remote health monitoring systems play an important role in the healthcare sector. Edge computing ... more Remote health monitoring systems play an important role in the healthcare sector. Edge computing is a key enabler for realizing these systems, where it is required to collect big data while providing real-time guarantees. In this study, we focus on remote cuff-less blood pressure (BP) monitoring through electrocardiogram (ECG) as a case study to evaluate the benefits of edge computing and compression. First, we investigate the state-of-the-art algorithms for BP estimation and ECG compression. Second, we develop a system to measure the ECG, estimate the BP, and store the results in the cloud with three different configurations: (i) estimation in the edge, (ii) estimation in the cloud, and (iii) estimation in the cloud with compressed transmission. Third, we evaluate the three approaches in terms of application latency, transmitted data volume, and power usage. In experiments with batches of 64 ECG samples, the edge computing approach has reduced average application latency by 15%, av...

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The SafeCOP ECSEL Project: Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems Using Wireless Communication

2016 Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD), 2016

This paper presents an overview of the ECSEL project entitled "Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Sy... more This paper presents an overview of the ECSEL project entitled "Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication" (SafeCOP), which runs during the period 2016-2019. SafeCOP targets safety-related Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems (CO-CPS) characterised by use of wireless communication, multiple stakeholders, dynamic system definitions (openness), and unpredictable operating environments. SafeCOP will provide an approach to the safety assurance of CO-CPS, enabling thus their certification and development. The project will define a runtime manager architecture for runtime detection of abnormal behaviour, triggering if needed a safe degraded mode. SafeCOP will also develop methods and tools, which will be used to produce safety assurance evidence needed to certify cooperative functions. SafeCOP will extend current wireless technologies to ensure safe and secure cooperation. SafeCOP will also contribute to new standards and regulations, by providing certification authorities and standardization committees with the scientifically validated solutions needed to craft effective standards extended to also address cooperation and system-of-systems issues. The project has 28 partners from 6 European countries, and a budget of about 11 million Euros corresponding to about 1,300 person-months.

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Examiner Supervisors

This thesis project is part of the MANY-project hosted by ITEA2. The objective of Many is to prov... more This thesis project is part of the MANY-project hosted by ITEA2. The objective of Many is to provide developers with tools for developing using multi and manycore, as well as to provide a knowledge-base about software on manycore. This thesis project has the following objectives: to investigate the complex subject of effectively managing system memory in a manycore environment, propose a memory management technique for implementation in OSE and to investigate the Tilera manycore processor TILEPro64 and Enea OSE in order to be able to continue the ongoing project of porting OSE to TILEPro64. Several memory management techniques were investigated for managing memory access on all tiers of the system. Some of these techniques require modifications to hardware while some are made directly in software.

Wool-- A C library for OSE PowerPC Multi-Core system

With the requirement of high property processor rapidly increasing, ordinary single-core processo... more With the requirement of high property processor rapidly increasing, ordinary single-core processors can hardly deal with the task it faces due to the limitation of frequency, power consumption, heat dissipation and etc. Under this circumstance multi-core processor technology turns out to be a reasonable solution for this problem. While multi-core processors will improve the performance like clock frequency, parallel threads and etc, a certain research illustrate that the improvement of the performance is not linear with the number of cores. This is because the overhead of scheduler, unbalanced load and the architecture of the multi-core processors. When operating system gives good model like SMP, AMP and industry like X86 and PowerPC design kind of architecture for multi-core, author’s direction naturally focus on a light overhead scheduler which is a C language scheduler “Wool ” researched in this paper originally designed by Mr. Karl-Filip Faxen in SICS. Wool is a library providin...

State-OfThe-Art on eHealth @ home System Architectures

With growing life expectancy and decreasing of fertility rates, demands of additional healthcare ... more With growing life expectancy and decreasing of fertility rates, demands of additional healthcare services is increasing day by day. This results in a rising need for additional healthcare services which leads to more medical care costs. Modern technology can play an important role to reduce the healthcare costs. In the new era of IoT, secure, fast, low energy consumption and reliable connectivity are necessary qualities to meet demands of health service. New protocols such as IEEE 802.11ax and the fifth generation of mobile broadband have a revolutionary impact over the wireless connectivity. At the same time, new technologies such as cloud computing and Close Loop Medication Management open a new horizon in the medical environment. This thesis studies different eHealth@home architectures in terms of their wireless communication technologies, data collection and data storage strategies. The functionality, benefits and gaps of current distance health monitoring architecture have been...

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Cooperative safety critical CPS platooning in SafeCOP

2017 6th Mediterranean Conference on Embedded Computing (MECO), 2017

This paper presents the platooning research within the Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems us... more This paper presents the platooning research within the Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication (SafeCOP) project. Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems (CO-CPS) using wireless communication and having multiple stakeholders, dynamic system definitions (openness), and unpredictable operating environments, are the main application of SafeCOP. In addition to safety assurance methods and tools, SafeCOP devises a runtime manager architecture that detects irregular operation, hence, prompting a safe degraded mode in case of need. SafeCOP lays a safety and security umbrella over the usage of current wireless technologies, contributes to new standards and regulations by providing scientifically validated solutions to establish standards which also addresses cooperation and systemof-systems issues. SafeCOP addresses several use cases that solve customer related problems. However, in this paper we will present a use case that extract generic principles from the combination of the previous use cases to stimulate the European collaboration around the project objectives, and to collect general requirements for the SafeCOP solution, applicable across all the areas considered. We consider a CO-CPS composed of two or more systems moving in a platoon while cooperating in a safe function.

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UML-Based Development of Embedded Real-Time Software on Multi-Core in Practice: Lessons Learned and Future Perspectives

IEEE Access, 2016

Model-driven engineering has got a foothold in industry as an effective way to tame the complexit... more Model-driven engineering has got a foothold in industry as an effective way to tame the complexity of modern software, which is meant to run on embedded systems with real-time constraints by promoting abstraction, in terms of prescriptive models, and automation, in terms of model manipulations. In the plethora of modeling languages, the unified modeling language (UML) has emerged and established itself as a de facto standard in industry, the most widely used architectural description language and an ISO/IEC standard. In the SMARTCore project, we have provided solutions for the UML-based development of software to run on multicore embedded real-time systems with the specific focus of automating the generation of executable code and the optimization of task allocation based on a unique combination of model-based and execution-based mechanisms. In this paper, we describe the lessons learned in the research work carried out within SMARTCore and provide a set of perspectives that we consider to be highly relevant for the forthcoming future of this research area to enable a wider adoption of UML-based development in industry in general, and in the multicore embedded real-time domain in particular. INDEX TERMS Model-driven engineering, UML, ALF, task allocation optimization, embedded, real-time, code generation.

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SMARTCore: Boosting Model-Driven Engineering of Embedded Systems for Multicore

2015 12th International Conference on Information Technology - New Generations, 2015

ABSTRACT Thanks to continuous advances in both software and hardware technologies the power of mo... more ABSTRACT Thanks to continuous advances in both software and hardware technologies the power of modern embedded systems is ever increasing along with their complexity. Among the others, Model-Driven Engineering has grown consideration for mitigating this complexity through its ability to shift the focus of the development from hand-written code to models from which correct-by-construction implementation is automatically gener-ated. However, the path towards correctness-by-construction is often twisted by the inability of current MDE approaches to preserve certain extra-functional properties such as CPU and memory usage, execution time and power consumption. With SMARTCore we address open challenges, described in this paper together with an overview of possible solutions, in modelling, generating code from models, and exploiting back-propagated extra-functional properties observed at runtime for deployment optimisation of embedded systems on multicore. SMARTCore brings together world leading competence in soft-ware engineering, model-driven engineering for embedded sys-tems (Mälardalen University), and market leading expertise in the development of these systems in different business areas (ABB Corporate Research, Ericsson AB, Alten Sweden AB).

Power-Aware Scheduling in Embedded Systems: Adaptation of SDVS Scheduling using Deadline Overrun Detection

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) take computation, communication, monitoring and control to a new lev... more Cyber-physical systems (CPS) take computation, communication, monitoring and control to a new level of complexity due to their inherent integration with each other and the physical world. Energy efficiency is paramount in such systems since high energy consuming hardware components are envisioned to be deeply embedded within the physical environment, thus calling for the need to incorporate energy awareness into the design and analysis of a CPS rather than as an afterthought. Solutions must reach beyond those for stand-alone real-time systems or homogeneous sensor-networks, to be able to reason about heterogeneous systems of systems integrated at multiple levels, while guaranteeing their safety-critical requirements. This workshop calls for papers that seek to rethink the notion of energy and power awareness, at the device, architectural or operating system (scheduling) levels, in the context of CPS design and analysis.

DySCAS System Specification-Part II: Specification of DySCAS MiddlewareReference Architecture

The purpose of this document is to provide a comprehensive definition of theDySCAS Middleware Ref... more The purpose of this document is to provide a comprehensive definition of theDySCAS Middleware Reference Architecture, including the DySCASArchitecture Model together with the underlying DySCAS Component Model andDySCAS Information Model. The component model provides a standardizedapproach to the interfaces, internal structure and behaviours of middlewareservices. The information model constitutes an ontology and effective means forcapturing and formulating the meta-information of system configuration. Suchinformation is typically concerned with the system architecture specification andoperation status that is necessary for run-time configuration management.This document serves as a guide for understanding the functionalities andsemantics of this reference architecture in detail.

DySCAS System Architecture

This deliverable provides an architectural strategy and overall system design forthe DySCAS middl... more

Runtime verification of state machines and defect localization applying model-based testing

Proceedings of the WICSA 2014 Companion Volume, 2014

ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce a method for runtime verification of the behavior of a system... more ABSTRACT In this paper we introduce a method for runtime verification of the behavior of a system against state machines models in order to identify inconsistencies between the two. This is achieved by tracking states and transitions at runtime and comparing with the expected behavior of the system captured in the form of state machine models. The goal is to increase our confidence that the order of states at runtime matches what is specified by the models. The method also provides for defect localization by identifying that in the transition between which states a deviation from the expected behavior has occurred. The necessity and importance of the method lies in the fact that in model-based development, models are also used to perform analysis. Therefore, if there is any discrepancy between the behavior of the system at runtime and the models, then the result of model-based analyses which are performed may also be invalid and not applicable for the system anymore. For this purpose, in our method we create executable test cases from state machine models to test the runtime behavior of the system.

An industrial deployment of a real time power aware scheduler

ETFA2011, 2011

Feature content of modern mobile devices is increasing rapidly, followed by a soaring power consu... more Feature content of modern mobile devices is increasing rapidly, followed by a soaring power consumption. We are forced to optimize for power consumption, which impacts design at both hardware and software level. The complexity of the problem increases when considering event driven real time systems where the CPU speed can affect temporal validity. We present an industrial implementation of a

Autonomic Communication

The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if... more The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com

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An architectural approach to autonomics and self-management of automotive embedded electronic systems

Embedded electronic systems in vehicles are of rapidly increasing commercial importance for the a... more Embedded electronic systems in vehicles are of rapidly increasing commercial importance for the automotive industry. While current vehicular embedded systems are extremely limited and static, a more dynamic configurable system would greatly simplify the integration work and increase quality of vehicular systems. This brings in features like separation of concerns, customised software configuration for individual vehicles, seamless connectivity, and plug-and-play capability. Furthermore, such a system can also contribute to increased dependability and resource optimization due to its inherent ability to adjust itself dynamically to changes in software, hardware resources, and environment condition. This paper describes the architectural approach to achieving the goals of dynamically self-configuring automotive embedded electronic systems by the EU research project DySCAS. The architecture solution outlined in this paper captures the application and operational contexts, expected features, middleware services, functions and behaviours, as well as the basic mechanisms and technologies. The paper also covers the architecture conceptualization by presenting the rationale, concerning the architecture structuring, control principles, and deployment concept. In this paper, we also present the adopted architecture V&V strategy and discuss some open issues in regards to the industrial acceptance.

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Porting a C Library for Fine Grained Independent Task Parallelism to Enea OSE RTOS

Multi-core starts an era to improve the performance of computations by executing instructions in ... more Multi-core starts an era to improve the performance of computations by executing instructions in parallel. However, the improvement in performance is not linear with the number of cores, because of the overhead caused by intercommunication and unbalanced load over cores. Wool provides a solution to improve the performance of multi-core systems. It is a C library for fine grained independent task parallelism developed by Karl-Filip Faxen in SICS, which helps to keep load balance over cores by work stealing and leapfrogging.In this master thesis project, Wool is ported to the Enea OSE real-time operating system aiming at supplying an approach to improve the performance of the multi-core system. To reach this goal, multi-core architecture, task parallelism algorithms, as well as POSIX threads are studied. Besides, hardware synchronization primitives which are defined by processors are studied and implemented in Wool. The target hardware for this study is Freescale P4080 board with eigh...

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