ReCoNets - Design Methodology for Embedded Systems Consisting of Small Networks of Reconfigurable Nodes and Connections

Automotive, avionic or body-area networks are systems that consist of several communicating control units specialized for certain purposes. Typically, constraints regarding reliability, availability but also flexibility are imposed on these systems. In this chapter, we will present the ReCoNets approach for increasing reliability and flexibility of such systems by solving the hardware/software codesign problem online. A ReCoNet allows to migrate tasks implemented in hardware or software from one node to another. Typically, it consists of a network of communicating Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and CPUs. Moreover, if a sufficient number of hardware/software resources is not available, the migration of functionality from hardware to software or vice versa is initiated by the system itself. For supporting such flexibility, new design methods as well as services integrated in a distributed operating system for networked embedded systems are revealed. Besides the formal definition of methods and concepts providing several self-x properties such as self-healing, self-adaptiveness and self-optimization, a ReCoNet demonstrator is presented hosting a driver assistance application.

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