Research

Isolated and Secure Runtime Environments

The growing trend in embedded systems to consolidate numerous applications on highly parallel computing architectures often times results in mixed criticality systems.
This development necessitates isolation mechanisms that prevent interference between different applications in mixed criticality systems. In addition, the runtime environment can contribute to the security of the system by assessing the integrity and authenticity of the applications (Trusted Execution Environment).

Deterministic Real-Time Systems

The use of embedded systems in safety-critical domains entails high requirements on their functional safety. One major point of concern in this regard is the time predictability as well as the deterministic dataflow between system components.
These basis for these traits are task models, which allow a formal description of the timing and communication behavior of the tasks.
The transfer of these models to embedded hardware, however, poses a considerable challenge. This comprises the derivation of a valid schedule as well as a mapping of the tasks to available resources.

Real-Time-Capable Multicore Platforms

Fields like autonomous driving and IIoT call for powerful embedded computing platforms, while also requiring time predictability for safety critical applications. This can be achieved by preventing resource conflicts as the main source of interference. One approach is to minimize mutual interference between cores through local memory. Likewise the overhead incurred by the isolation and communication mechanisms can be reduced by closely integrating the hardware with the runtime environment by means of HW/SW Co-Design.