Title: A software-based calibration approach to increase the robustness of embedded systems

Authors: Md. Al Maruf; Akramul Azim

Addresses: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ontario Tech University, Canada ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ontario Tech University, Canada

Abstract: Embedded systems often interact with dynamic environments requiring not only to meet deadlines but also to achieve a certain level of accuracy. Since the inaccuracy of a task output produces a similar adverse effect like timing violation, we propose a software-based calibration approach to increase the robustness of embedded systems by monitoring and comparing system component's output accuracy with a calibration standard to take actions for addressing any inaccuracy. The calibration standard is derived from a representative component's output with known high accuracy. As an example, we analyse the accuracy of a component that performs dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) and explains the associated timing effects in terms of task schedulability. We also perform experiments on LITMUS^RT kernel to demonstrate the need and applicability of our calibration approach in the domain of embedded systems.

Keywords: real-time embedded systems; task scheduling; task accuracy; software-based calibration; DVFS algorithm; LITMUS^RT; monitoring framework; quality of service; QoS; accuracy-based schedulability; calibration standards.

DOI: 10.1504/IJES.2020.110662

International Journal of Embedded Systems, 2020 Vol.13 No.4, pp.466 - 475

Received: 18 Jul 2019
Accepted: 03 Oct 2019
Published online: 27 Oct 2020 *

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