Fault-tolerant deployment of embedded software for cost-sensitive real-time feedback-control applications

Designing cost-sensitive real-time control systems for safety-critical applications requires a careful analysis of the cost/coverage trade-offs of fault-tolerant solutions. This further complicates the dif-ficult task of deploying the embedded software that implements the control algorithms on the execution platform that is often distributed around the plant (as it is typical, for instance, in automotive applica-tions). We propose a synthesis-based design methodology that relieves the designers from the burden of specifying detailed mechanisms for addressing platform faults, while involving them in the definition of the overall fault-tolerance strategy. Thus, they can focus on addressing plant faults within their control algorithms, selecting the best compo-nents for the execution platform, and defining an accurate fault model. Our approach is centered on a new model of computation, Fault Tol-erant Data Flows (FTDF), that enables the integration of formal vali-dation techniques.