Aims: Project Debugging of Real-Time Systems

Today, electronics is the main innovation driver in the automotive area. More than 90% of innovation in cars are due to electronics and software. Future developments in this domain address the requirements for increased safety, higher environmental efficiency, higher reliability and better comfort. Distributed electronic control units enable the replacement of mechanic and hydraulic solutions whilst increasing the amount of functionality at the same time. The automotive industry, presently, introduces new solutions to cope with the above requirements. Viennese companies like Continental Corporation or Decomsys GmbH or TTAutomotive provide leading expertise and development solutions for automotive electronics. This only underlines the fact that distributed embedded systems in general are a striving field of RTD. The following image exemplifies the interactions in such a real-time system. The commands issued by the driver of a future drive-by-wire vehicle are transfered via a computer network to the acutators of the breaking system. After a certain time the break maneuver is actually carried out by the acutators of the breaking system. This is shown in the first case. If at the time of issuing the break command the system is currently engeged with the processing of diagnosis data, the second case shows that this may lead to timing violations in the real-time system. Thus special care has to be taken to guarantee operation under timing constraints.

The project Debugging of Real-Time Systems aims at the provision of a basic concept for test and diagnosis of real-time systems with a focus on the context of automotive electronics. The following image exemplifies a typical automotive system. The nodes of this example system are providing diagnosis and debugging data via the system bus and a dedicated diagnosis node collects this data.

The presented project is in line with other projects established by the Research Group Embedded Systems and will strengthen the know-how within the group. The outcome of the project is transferred to students that get involved into the merits of automotive electronics and real-time systems and provide them with an up-to-date education.