Scientific publications

Image-Based control systems extract information by a camera and an image processing algorithm. The challenge of such controllers is that the sensing latency deteriorates the control performance. Multi-core technology can be used to implement the sensing algorithm in a pipelined fashion. More processing resources potentially lead to better settling time.

The development of cyber-physical systems (CPSs) with mechanical, electrical and software components requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Moreover, the use of models is important to support trade-offs and design decisions early in the development process. Since the different engineering disciplines use different modelling languages and tools, this calls for a co-simulation framework for discrete and continuous models.

This article studies the scheduling of real-time streaming applications on multiprocessor systems-on-chips with predictable memory hierarchy. An iteration-based task-FIFO co-scheduling framework is proposed for this problem. We obtain FIFO size distributions using Pareto space searching, based on which the task-toprocessor mapping is obtained with the potential FIFO allocation being taken into account; then, the FIFOto-memory allocation is optimized to minimize the total memory access cost; finally, a self-timed throughput analysis method that considers memory and direct memory access controller contention is utilized to analyze the throughput.

Multi-processor systems-on-chips are widely adopted in implementing modern streaming applications to satisfy the ever increasing computation requirements. To take advantage of this kind of platform, it is necessary to map tasks of the application properly to different processors, so as to fully exploit the inherent task-level parallelism and satisfy the stringent timing requirements.

The high-tech industry produces complex devices in which software plays an important role. Since these devices have been developed for many decades, an increasing part of the software can be classified as legacy which is difficult to maintain and to extend. To improve the maintainability of legacy components, domain specific languages (DSLs) provide promising perspectives.

Wireless in-vehicle networks are considered as a flexible and cost-efficient solution for the new generation of cars. One of the candidate wireless technologies for these wireless sensor networks is the IEEE 802.15.4 standard which operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. This is while the number of wireless devices that operate in this band is ever increasing.

The need for authentic and effective portrayal of the spatiotemporally changing quality of wireless links has gained wide attention especially over the last decade. Software-based link quality estimators (LQE) classify links with help of packet reception ratio (PRR), required number of packet transmissions (RNP) and scoring/grading schemes that again utilize PRR, RNP or retransmission based heuristics.

Self re-entrant flowshops consist of machines which process jobs several times. They are found in applications like TFT-LCD assembly, LED manufacturing and industrial printing. The structure of a self re-entrant flowshop influences its performance. To get better performance while reducing costs a fast performance estimation method can be used to explore the trade-offs between the structure and the performance during the design process.

Today’s embedded and cyber-physical systems are getting more connected and complex. One main challenge during development is the often loose coupling between engineering tools, which could lead to inconsistencies and errors due to the manual transfer and duplication of data. Open formats and specifications raise expectations for seamlessly integrated tool chains for systems engineering combining best-of-breed technologies and tools of different tool vendors.