Abstract
A common approach in embedded systems to achieve faulttolerance is to reboot the computer whenever some non-permanent error is detected. All the system code and data are recreated from scratch, and a previously established checkpoint, hopefully not corrupted, is used to restart the application data. The confidence is thus restored on the activity of the computer. The idea explored in this paper is that of unconditionally resetting the computer in each control frame (the classic read sensors → calculate control action → update actuators cycle). A stable-storage based in RAM is used to preserve the system’s state between consecutive cleanups and a standard watchdog timer guarantees that a reset is forced whenever an error crashes the system. We have evaluated this approach by using fault-injection in the controller of a standard temperature control system. The experimental observations show that the Reset-Driven Fault Tolerance is a very simple yet effective technique to improve reliability at an extremely low cost since it is a conceptually simple, software only solution with the advantage of being application independent.
This work was partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the POSI programme and the FEDER programme of the European Union, through the R&D Unit 326/94 (CISUC) and the project PRAXIS/P/EEI/10205/1998 (CRON).
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Cunha, J.C., Correia, A., Henriques, J., Rela, M.Z., Silva, J.G. (2002). Reset-Driven Fault Tolerance. In: Bondavalli, A., Thevenod-Fosse, P. (eds) Dependable Computing EDCC-4. EDCC 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2485. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36080-8_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36080-8_13
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