Distributed embedded systems: Validation strategies

Abstract

Validation plays an important role in the design process of embedded Systems. It is the onlyway to relate the requirementsand specification of a design to the real, final system. It is further a mean to obtain objective quality metrics about a system in its target environment, and to gain confidencein the Systems quality. The Validation of embedded Systems is challenging. For complex industrial produets, about 50 percent of the complete designtime is spenton Validation.The Validation of distributed embedded Systems is even more complex since these Systems introduce new challenges such as (i) unreliable wireless communication, (ii) the distributed nature of the system, (iii) limited resources, and (iv) limited infrastrueturefor inspecting the system. In this thesis we contribute towards an increased quality of the design of distributed embedded Systems. Our research on Validation strategies addresses the challenging problems that arise from the peculiarities of distributed embedded Systems such as wireless sensornetworks, reconfigurable-,and wearable Computers. The specific contributions are presentedand discussedfor different phases and levels of abstraction in the design and developmentprocess: • An estimation-basedValidation strategy is presented for wearable Systems consisting of distributed modules with Computing- and communicationdevices. • We propose the virtualized execution in distributed embedded Systems when applications are executed on reconfigurable hardware. We introduce hardwaretasks and an interpreted coordination language which allows a developer to validate and to deploy tasks separately. • We discuss the practicability of distributedalgorithmsand problematic Simulationassumptions on the example of the topology control problemfor wireless sensor networks. • The Deployment Support Network (DSN) is proposed as a novel Validation strategy for distributedwireless embeddedSystems. The DSNis a platform-independenttoolkit thatallowsa developerto test applications on the real hardwareand in a real-world deployment.