Title: Towards spatial isolation design in a multi-core real-time kernel targeting safety-critical applications

Authors: Gang Li; Søren Top

Addresses: Mads Clausen Institute for Product Innovation, University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, DK-6400, Sønderborg, Denmark ' Mads Clausen Institute for Product Innovation, University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, DK-6400, Sønderborg, Denmark

Abstract: In mixed-criticality systems, applications naturally have different safety criticality levels. Partitioning technology is usually used to enable the integration of such mixed criticality applications upon one platform, aiming at reducing hardware, power consumption and especially certification cost. Partitioning can prevent fault propagation among mixed-criticality applications, if spatial and temporal isolation are adequately ensured. This paper focuses on the solution of spatial isolation in the HARTEX kernel on a multi-core platform in terms of memory, communication between applications and I/O sharing. According to formulated isolation requirements, a simple partitioning multi-core hardware architecture is proposed using SoC and memory protection units, and the kernel is extended to support spatial isolation between the kernel and applications as well as between applications. Combined design of hardware and software can easily achieve this isolation. At last, the spatial isolation is evaluated using a statistical sampling method and its performance is tested in terms of task switch, system call and footprint.

Keywords: mixed-criticality; safety-critical applications; certification cost; spatial isolation; partitioning architecture; multicore hardware; real-time kernel; SoC architecture; system-on-chip; memory protection unit; MPU; sampling; safety criticality; critical computer-based systems; task switch; system call; footprint.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCCBS.2013.058402

International Journal of Critical Computer-Based Systems, 2013 Vol.4 No.3, pp.248 - 264

Received: 23 Jan 2013
Accepted: 19 Jun 2013
Published online: 29 Apr 2014 *

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