Dec. 22, 2022 — Greater performance demands of safety-critical, real-time systems require hardware and software components that can integrate the complexity required while adhering to stringent safety verification processes. With the EU-funded SELENE project, BSC researchers have risen to this challenge by developing four safety-related components that improve observability and control channels to provide flexible solutions in industrial use cases.
BSC expertise has led to the development of the open-source modules SafeSU, SafeDE, SafeDM, and SafeTI that support verification and validation (V&V) processes and safety measure deployment. The modules have already been integrated with Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) protocols such as AMBA Advanced High-performance Bus (AHB) and AMBA Advanced eXtensible Interface 4 (AXI4).
These new components have been tested by the project’s four use cases: an autonomous robot from Virtual Vehicles, an autonomous train from CAF Signalling, and two space use-cases covering satellites and deep space stations from Airbus Defence and Space, France and Germany– each of which has its own software and hardware guidelines and regulations.
These components are also being transferred to Collins Aerospace in Ireland for use in the industry and are being used to create more opportunities for European projects and to share knowledge with RISC-V interested groups.
The BSC-developed components are publicly available with their supporting publications via the BSC-hosted Github repository.
“BSC SafeX technologies developed in SELENE are the basis for enabling a safety-relevant SoC [System on Chip] that becomes a safety island, providing observability and controllability features to HPC SoCs lacking them,” explained Jaume Abella, BSC principal investigator for the SELENE project and co-Manager of the Computer Architecture OS Interface CAOS Group.
Next steps for BSC researchers include developing this safety island concept. Support for this concept is currently being gathered from key industrial partners.
About SELENE
SELENE (Self-monitored Dependable platform for High-Performance Safety-Critical Systems) is an EU-funded project with a budget of €4.9 million which started on December 1, 2019 and ended on November 30, 2022. The project is coordinated by Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and brings together a multidisciplinary 11-partner consortium. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 871467.
Source: Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BCS-CNS))