Monitoring and Configuration in a Smart Transducer Network

There is a strong necessity for monitoring, runtime configuration, and maintenance of smart transducer networks. This paper describes tools for establishing these tasks in distributed real-time systems. A time-triggered architecture is presented, that accomplishes deterministic, reproducible monitoring of a smart transducer network without probe effects. This architecture allows access to the relevant node internal information to render all conditions observable, which cause a specific system behavior. Timeliness during dynamic reconfiguration and maintenance is preserved, which allows evolutionary changes and maintenance of the system during real-time operation. The architecture comprises both a local application and a CORBA client/server communication. We present a case study providing insight into a concrete implementation of this architecture based on the fieldbus protocol TTP/A.

[1]  D. Stott Parker,et al.  Saving traces for Ada debugging , 1985, SIGAda '85.

[2]  J. W. Specks,et al.  LIN-protocol, development tools, and software Interfaces for local interconnect networks in vehicles , 2000 .

[3]  Henrik Thane,et al.  Monitoring, Testing and Debugging of Distributed Real-Time Systems , 2000 .

[4]  Building Plug-and-Play Networked Smart Transducers The Proposed IEEE P 1451 . 2 Standard Enables Transducer Manufacturers to Support Multiple Fieldbuses , 1999 .

[5]  Wilfried Elmenreich,et al.  A universal smart transducer interface: TTP/A , 2000, Proceedings Third IEEE International Symposium on Object-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC 2000) (Cat. No. PR00607).

[6]  Konrad Slind,et al.  Monitoring distributed systems , 1987, TOCS.

[7]  Lyn Bartram,et al.  The continuous zoom: a constrained fisheye technique for viewing and navigating large information spaces , 1995, UIST '95.

[8]  Wen H. Ko,et al.  VLSI and intelligent transducers , 1981 .

[9]  Charles E. McDowell,et al.  Debugging concurrent programs , 1989, ACM Comput. Surv..

[10]  Wilfried Elmenreich,et al.  New Node Integration in TTP/A Networks , 2001 .

[11]  H. J. Beier,et al.  Software monitoring of parallel programs , 1989 .

[12]  Jon Sigel,et al.  CORBA Fundamentals and Programming , 1996 .

[13]  Kang Lee.  IEEE 1451: A standard in support of smart transducer networking , 2000, Proceedings of the 17th IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference [Cat. No. 00CH37066].

[14]  Jeffrey J. P. Tsai,et al.  A noninvasive architecture to monitor real-time distributed systems , 1990, Computer.

[15]  H. Kopetz,et al.  Real Time Robot Navigation with a Smart Transducer Network , 2001 .

[16]  Jason Gait,et al.  A probe effect in concurrent programs , 1986, Softw. Pract. Exp..

[17]  Jeff Magee,et al.  Dynamic Configuration for Distributed Systems , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[18]  Hermann Kopetz,et al.  Software engineering for real-time: a roadmap , 2000, ICSE '00.