Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Embedded model control'

The objective of this thesis is to provide an exhaustive (as much as possible) description of Guidance Navigation and Control systems (GNC) for the propulsive terminal phase of mars landing scientific missions, and to define a unified GNC architecture capable of solving soft landing, and pin-point landing problems. Accordingly, a model-based control system design methodology will be employed throughout. Such a design technique, called Embedded Model Control (EMC), is hinged on the construction of a finite dimensional Discrete-Time (DT) State Equation (SE), called Embedded Model (EM), describing the landing vehicle motion dynamics. The EM is embedded in the Digital Control Unit (DCU), acting as the core of the GNC algorithms. In this chapter , the current scenario of mars exploration technologies will be briefly introduced. Then a brief review of key missions will be done, particularly attention will be take into landing missions and its control system requirements for the terminal decent phase, giving to the reader a fast overview of the past and actual control requirements for mars landing exploration missions.

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a multivariable advanced control technique widely popular inmany industrial applications due to its ability to explicitly optimize performance, straightforwardly handling constraints on system variables. However, MPC requires solving a Quadratic Programming (QP) optimization problem at each sampling step. This has slowed down its diffusion in embedded applications, in which fast sampling rates are paired with scarce computational capabilities, as in the automotive and aerospace industries. This thesis proposes optimization techniques and controller formulations specifically tailored to embedded applications. First, fixed-point implementations of Dual Gradient Projection (DGP) and Proximal Newton methods are introduced. Detailed convergence analysis in the presence of round-off errors and algorithm optimizations are presented, and concrete guidelines for selecting the minimum number of fractional and integer bits that guarantee convergence are provided. Moreover, extensive simulations and experimental tests on embedded devices, supported by general-purpose processing units and FPGAs, are reported to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solvers, and to expose the benefits of fixed-point arithmetic in terms of computation speeds and memory requirements. Finally, an embedded MPC application to spacecraft attitude control with reaction wheels actuators is presented. A lightweight controller with specific optimizations is developed, and its good performance evaluated in simulations. Moreover, special MPC formulations that address the problem of reaction wheel desaturation are discussed, where the constraint handling property of MPC is exploited to achieve desaturation without the need of fuel-consuming devices such as thrusters.

A causa delle alte frequenze di campionamento e delle ridotte risorse computazionali, la certificazione di complessità ha un ruolo chiave nella determinazione del successo del Model Predictive Control (MPC) nelle applicazioni embedded. Questa tesi propone un algoritmo di certificazione per metodi active-set duali, che permette di calcolare esattamente il tempo massimo di risoluzione di un problema di Quadratic Programming (QP) parametrico, risultante ad esempio da formulazioni MPC lineari. Dato un problema MPC e una piattaforma di calcolo è quindi possibile certificare se il problema di ottimizzazione sarà sempre risolto nel limite di tempo. La mancanza di una certificazione è anche una minaccia per la validità dei metodi di accelerazione, dato che il miglioramento del tempo massimo di soluzione è molto più importante di quello medio per embedded MPC. Due nuovi metodi sono presentati per i quali il miglioramento nel caso peggiore è certificabile esattamente. Il primo è un MPC semi-esplicito che combina un risolutore online con la legge multiparametrica delle partizioni poliedrali che incidono maggiormente sul caso peggiore. Il secondo consiste in una selezione alternativa dei vincoli violati per metodi active-set duali, la quale diminuisce sia il numero massimo di iterazioni, sia la complessità della singola iterazione. Infine, la tesi propone applicazioni sperimentali di embedded MPC a motori elettrici e convertitori di potenza. Il controllo di coppia di un motore brushless tramite MPC è validato su un’unità di controllo economica, risultando più veloce della corrispondente soluzione multiparametrica. Viene poi presentato un controllo MPC per convertitori DC-DC pre-compensati per aggirare il problema dei controllori primali non modificabili. Inoltre, è affrontato il problema della stima dello stato per diversi convertitori nella stessa unità di alimentazione, sviluppando un osservatore robusto e non lineare unificato per sei diverse tipologie di convertitori.
Due to the fast sampling frequency and the scarce computational resources, the complexity certification of optimization algorithms plays a key role in determining the success of embedded Model Predictive Control (MPC). This thesis proposes a certification algorithm for dual active-set methods, able to compute exactly the worst-case number of iterations and the amount of time needed to solve a parametric Quadratic Programming (QP) problem, like those that arise in linear MPC. Therefore, given an MPC problem and a computational unit, it can be certified if the optimization problem will be always solved in the prescribed amount of time. The lack of a complexity certification is a threat for accelerating methods as well, as speeding up the worst-case time is much more important than improving the average case in embedded MPC. The thesis presents two novel accelerating methodologies, for which the worst-case improvement can be exactly certified. The first is a semi-explicit MPC, combining an online solver with the multiparametric solution of those polyhedral regions that most affect the worst-case time. The second method consists of an alternative selection for violated constraints in dual active-set solvers, which lowers the worst-case number of iterations and the complexity of the single iteration. Finally, embedded MPC for electrical drives and power converters is experimentally investigated. MPC for the torque control of a brushless motor is demonstrated to be feasible on a cheap control board, and even faster than the corresponding multiparametric solution. Embedded MPC for pre-compensated DC-DC converters is developed, in order to overcome the obstacle of a non-modifiable primal controller, very common in power converters. The issue of estimating the state for multiple DC-DC converters on the same power supply is also addressed, by presenting a unified nonlinear robust observer for six different converter topologies.

An embedded model predictive controller for velocity control of trucks is developed and tested. By using a simple model of a heavy duty vehicle and knowledge about the slope of the road ahead, the fuel consumption while traveling near a set speed is diminished by almost 1% on an example road compared to a rule based speed control system. The problem is formulated as a look-ahead optimization problem were fuel consumption and total trip time have to be minimized. To find the optimal solution dynamic programming is used, and the whole code is designed to run on a Scania gearbox ECU in parallel with all the current software. Simulations were executed in a Simulink environment, and two test rides were performed on the E4 motorway.
En algoritm för hastighetsstyrning baserad på modell-prediktiv reglering har utvecklats och testats på befintlig styrsystem i ett Scania lastbil. Genom att använda en enkel modell av fordonet och kunskap om lutningen på vägen framför den kunde man sänka bränsleförbrukningen med nästan 1% i vissa sträckor, jämfört med en regelbaserad farthållare. Problemet är formulerat som en optimerings-problem där bränsleförbrukning och total restid måste minimeras. För att hitta den optimala lösningen användes dynamisk programmering och hela koden är skriven så att den kan exekveras på en Scania styrenehet. Koden är kan köras parallellt med den mjukvara som är installerad på styrenheten. Simuleringar utfördes i en miljö utvecklad i Simulink. Två test-körningar på E4 motorvägen utfördes.

Todays technological projects become increasingly complex. This increases the demands for seamless interaction between development tools. Problems like tool lock-in, and tool obsolescence become more significant. For large and complex projects, it is important to maximize the efficiency of the toolchain to avoid wasting time and money. To achieve this, a framework is being developed that aims to provide a seamless way to interchange tools and avoid many common problems. A demonstrator needs to be developed to validate this framework. This paper presents an implementation of a hardware-software system that can be used for that purpose. This system will rely on an integrated tool chain and thus provide grounds for experimentation using the abovementioned framework. It has been decided that this demonstrator will be in form of a wind turbine. Any other sufficiently complex hardware-software system could be used.First, the physics behind a fullscale turbine was studied. Then, several solutions for the implementation of the model were considered. A design was made and the components were chosen. A mechanical model was built, and a mathematical model was designed in Matlab Simulink. Also, a controller model was made in Matlab Simulink, which was loaded onto an industrial controller. Electrical circuits and interfaces were developed, as well as a communication protocol. In the end, verification was performed and an example usage of the demonstrator given.The result and product of this work is a platform, in shape of a scale wind turbine, for developing and validating a tool chain framework.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and, more specifically, n-copters have come to prominence in the last decade. Indeed, unmanned vehicles may have several applications in society, spanning from complex operations, also in potentially hazardous environments for humans to more entertaining purposes. Furthermore, UAVs have drawn great attention in the automatic control research community. This is mainly due to two reasons. First of all, designing a control for this non-linear and underactuated system can represent a stimulating challenge for control researchers. Secondly, n-copters, being typically mechanically simple and fast-prototyping devices, are widely considered as a good technology for testing a wide range of control algorithms and designs, also employing a wide range of sensors. In fact, the possibility of having several low cost sensors on-board enables the implementation of many navigation solutions as well as sensor calibration algorithms. In this work, the control unit design for a quadrotor was addressed. In particular, the study regards the Borea quadrotor which is part of an internal project (Borea) of the former Space and Precision Automatics research, now Systems and Data Science group, at Politecnico di Torino. The Borea project aims to test Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) algorithms designed within the framework of the Embedded Model Control (EMC) methodology. In particular, one of the main project objectives regards the testing of planetary landing algorithms because of the similitude in the command authority between n-copters and spacecrafts during the landing phase. In fact, both n-copters and spacecrafts can provides a thrust vector which is constant in direction whereas its intensity can be regulated. The EMC framework matches the GNC architecture perfectly. More important, EMC is a methodology based on an internal model which includes the uncertainties, in the form of disturbances, that have to be rejected. Indeed, the main design effort is focused on the internal model design, which is the core of the whole control unit. The Borea UAV has been endowed with a control system in order to control its position, velocity, and attitude. These results has been achieved by means of a well structured design process which started from the plant modelling and arrived to the flight test. Indeed, the process has involved intensive numerical simulation and control refinements as well as multi-staged tests and model validations. During the design process some neglected dynamics has turned out to be very important for the control design and their identification was revealed mandatory. On the other hand, the control problem was separated into two independent controllers in order to have a more simple controller which makes the quadrotor able to fly allowing to test all the subsystems, improve the simulator fidelity and support the design and validation of the second controller. Each controller has required specifics flight tests aimed to validates particular functionalities and control performance. Testing has included the design and building of a single axis test-bench in order to perform the very first control tuning in a safety way. The objective of the first controller was the attitude stabilization of the quadrotor in order to perform a hovering flight initially and the attitude tracking later. The design of the attitude controller has required the identification of the actuator dynamics as well as the sensors calibration. The attitude control unit has been implemented in all its parts and successfully tested in real flight. As mentioned before, the next step has been focused on controlling the quadrotor position within a limited flight area. In particular, this study investigates the use of the feedback linearization approach as a novel way to design the internal model for EMC. The feedback linearization allows us to collect all the non-linearities at the command level. EMC, by means of a disturbance dynamics model, makes possible to estimate and then reject the non-linear terms through the control law. The control solution has been validated by means of intensive numerical simulations and real-flight tests. As a final result, the control units developed in this work enhance the EMC applicability to non-linear systems, such as quadrotor UAVs, and evidence the EMC disturbance rejection capabilities.

The development of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) produces comfort and safety through the application of several control theories. One of these systems is the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). In this work, a distribution of two control loops of such system is developed for an embedded application to a vehicle. The vehicle model was estimated using the system identification theory. An outer loop control manages the radar data to compute a suitable cruise speed, and an inner loop control aims for the vehicle to reach the cruise speed given a desired performance. For the inner loop, it is used two different approaches of model predictive control: a finite horizon prediction control, known as MPC, and an infinite horizon prediction control, known as IHMPC. Both controllers were embedded in a microcontroller able to communicate directly with the electronic unit of the vehicle. This work validates its controllers using simulations with varying systems and practical experiments with the aid of a dynamometer. Both predictive controllers had a satisfactory performance, providing safety to the passengers.
A inclusão de sistemas avançados para assistência de direção (ADAS) tem beneficiado o conforto e segurança através da aplicação de diversas teorias de controle. Um destes sistemas é o Sistema de Controle de Cruzeiro Adaptativo. Neste trabalho, é usado uma distribuição de duas malhas de controle para uma implementação embarcada em um carro de um Controle de Cruzeiro Adaptativo. O modelo do veículo foi estimado usando a teoria de identificação de sistemas. O controle da malha externa utiliza dados de um radar para calcular uma velocidade de cruzeiro apropriada, enquanto o controle da malha interna busca o acionamento do veículo para atingir a velocidade de cruzeiro com um desempenho desejado. Para a malha interna, é utilizado duas abordagens do controle preditivo baseado em modelo: um controle com horizonte de predição finito, e um controle com horizonte de predição infinito, conhecido como IHMPC. Ambos controladores foram embarcados em um microcontrolador capaz de comunicar diretamente com a unidade eletrônica do veículo. Este trabalho valida estes controladores através de simulações com sistemas variantes e experimentos práticos com o auxílio de um dinamômetro. Ambos controladores preditivos apresentaram desempenho satisfatório, fornecendo segurança para os passageiros.

This work presents an embedded model predictive control application to a 2-DOF Helicopter Process. The mathematical modeling of the plant is first presented along with an analysis of the linear model. Then, the incremental state-space representations used in the MPC formulation are derived. The MPC technique is then defined, along with how to rewrite the physical constraints into the problem formulation. After that, a discussion on the utilized Quadratic Programming solver is presented along with possible alternatives to it, showing some considerations on which matrices to calculate beforehand for an embedded application. Finally, system identification is performed and the experimental results are presented.
Este trabalho apresenta uma aplicação de controle preditivo embarcado em um helicóptero de bancada com dois graus de liberdade. A modelagem matemática é apresentada, junto com uma análise do modelo linear obtido. São obtidas duas representações de modelos de espaço de estados considerando a entrada incremental, que serão usadas posteriormente para a formulação do controlador. Então, é definida a técnica de controle utilizada, juntamente com a inclusão das restrições físicas da planta na formulação do problema. Após isto, é feita uma discussão sobre qual solver para a programação quadrática utilizar, junto com algumas alternativas ao solver escolhido, bem como algumas considerações sobre a aplicação embarcada. Finalmente, são apresentados os resultados da identificação de sistemas aplicadas ao protótipo, bem como os resultados experimentais obtidos.

AbstractThe development of embedded computer control systems(ECS) requires a synergetic integration of heterogeneoustechnologies and multiple engineering disciplines. Withincreasing amount of functionalities and expectations for highproduct qualities, short time-to-market, and low cost, thesuccess of complexity control and built-in flexibility turn outto be one of the major competitive edges for many ECS products.For this reason, modeling and modularity assessment constitutetwo critical subjects of ECS engineering.In the development ofECS, model-based design is currently being exploited in most ofthe sub-systems engineering activities. However, the lack ofsupport for formalization and systematization associated withthe overall systems modeling leads to problems incomprehension, cross-domain communication, and integration oftechnologies and engineering activities. In particular, designchanges and exploitation of "components" are often risky due tothe inability to characterize components' properties and theirsystem-wide contexts. Furthermore, the lack of engineeringtheories for modularity assessment in the context of ECS makesit difficult to identify parameters of concern and to performearly system optimization. This thesis aims to provide a more complete basis for theengineering of ECS in the areas of systems modeling andmodularization. It provides solution domain models for embeddedcomputer control systems and the software subsystems. Thesemeta-models describe the key system aspects, design levels,components, component properties and relationships with ECSspecific semantics. By constituting the common basis forabstracting and relating different concerns, these models willalso help to provide better support for obtaining holisticsystem views and for incorporating useful technologies fromother engineering and research communities such as to improvethe process and to perform system optimization. Further, amodeling framework is derived, aiming to provide a perspectiveon the modeling aspect of ECS development and to codifyimportant modeling concepts and patterns. In order to extendthe scope of engineering analysis to cover flexibility relatedattributes and multi-attribute tradeoffs, this thesis alsoprovides a metrics system for quantifying componentdependencies that are inherent in the functional solutions.Such dependencies are considered as the key factors affectingcomplexity control, concurrent engineering, and flexibility.The metrics system targets early system-level design and takesinto account several domain specific features such asreplication and timing accuracy. Keywords:Domain-Specific Architectures, Model-basedSystem Design, Software Modularization and Components, QualityMetrics.
QC 20100524

L'autonomie est l'une des préoccupations majeures lors du développement de missions spatiales que l'objectif soit scientifique (exploration interplanétaire, observations, etc) ou commercial (service en orbite). Pour le rendez-vous spatial, cette autonomie dépend de la capacité embarquée de contrôle du mouvement relatif entre deux véhicules spatiaux. Dans le contexte du service aux satellites (dépannage, remplissage additionnel d'ergols, correction d'orbite, désorbitation en fin de vie, etc), la faisabilité de telles missions est aussi fortement liée à la capacité des algorithmes de guidage et contrôle à prendre en compte l'ensemble des contraintes opérationnelles (par exemple, saturation des propulseurs ou restrictions sur le positionnement relatif entre les véhicules) tout en maximisant la durée de vie du véhicule (minimisation de la consommation d'ergols). La littérature montre que ce problème a été étudié intensément depuis le début des années 2000. Les algorithmes proposés ne sont pas tout à fait satisfaisants. Quelques approches, par exemple, dégradent les contraintes afin de pouvoir fonder l'algorithme de contrôle sur un problème d'optimisation efficace. D'autres méthodes, si elles prennent en compte l'ensemble du problème, se montrent trop lourdes pour être embarquées sur de véritables calculateurs existants dans les vaisseaux spatiaux. Le principal objectif de cette thèse est le développement de nouveaux algorithmes efficaces et validés pour le guidage et le contrôle impulsif des engins spatiaux dans le contexte des phases dites de "hovering" du rendez-vous orbital, i.e. les étapes dans lesquelles un vaisseau secondaire doit maintenir sa position à l'intérieur d'une zone délimitée de l'espace relativement à un autre vaisseau principal. La première contribution présentée dans ce manuscrit utilise une nouvelle formulation mathématique des contraintes d'espace pour le mouvement relatif entre vaisseaux spatiaux pour la conception d'algorithmes de contrôle ayant un traitement calculatoire plus efficace comparativement aux approches traditionnelles. La deuxième et principale contribution est une stratégie de contrôle prédictif qui assure la convergence des trajectoires relatives vers la zone de "hovering", même en présence de perturbations ou de saturation des actionneurs. [...]
Autonomy is one of the major concerns during the planning of a space mission, whether its objective is scientific (interplanetary exploration, observations, etc.) or commercial (service in orbit). For space rendezvous, this autonomy depends on the on-board capacity of controlling the relative movement between two spacecraft. In the context of satellite servicing (troubleshooting, propellant refueling, orbit correction, end-of-life deorbit, etc.), the feasibility of such missions is also strongly linked to the ability of the guidance and control algorithms to account for all operational constraints (for example, thruster saturation or restrictions on the relative positioning between the vehicles) while maximizing the life of the vehicle (minimizing propellant consumption). The literature shows that this problem has been intensively studied since the early 2000s. However, the proposed algorithms are not entirely satisfactory. Some approaches, for example, degrade the constraints in order to be able to base the control algorithm on an efficient optimization problem. Other methods accounting for the whole set of constraints of the problem are too cumbersome to be embedded on real computers existing in the spaceships. The main object of this thesis is the development of new efficient and validated algorithms for the impulsive guidance and control of spacecraft in the context of the so-called "hovering" phases of the orbital rendezvous, i.e. the stages in which a secondary vessel must maintain its position within a bounded area of space relatively to another main vessel. The first contribution presented in this manuscript uses a new mathematical formulation of the space constraints for the relative motion between spacecraft for the design of control algorithms with more efficient computational processing compared to traditional approaches. The second and main contribution is a predictive control strategy that has been formally demonstrated to ensure the convergence of relative trajectories towards the "hovering" zone, even in the presence of disturbances or saturation of the actuators.[...]

In this paper, a roll stability controller (RSC) is presented based on an eight degree of freedom dynamic vehicle model. The controller is designed for and tested on a scaled vehicle performing obstacle avoidance maneuvers on a populated test track. A rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) algorithm is used for the vehicle to execute a trajectory around an obstacle, and examines the geographic, non-homonymic, and dynamic constraints to maneuver around the obstacle. A model predictive controller (MPC) uses information about the vehicle state and, based on a weighted performance measure, generates an optimal trajectory around the obstacle. The RSC uses the standard vehicle state sensors: four wheel mounted encoders, a steering angle sensor, and a six degree of freedom inertial measurement unit (IMU). An emphasis is placed on the mitigation of rollover and spin-out, however if a safe maneuver is not found and a collision is inevitable, the program will run a brake command to reduce the vehicle speed before impact. The trajectory is updated at a rate of 20 Hz, providing improved stability and maneuverability for speeds up to 10 ft/s and turn angles of up to 20°.

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The purpose of this study is to adapt and embed a navigation system and control of mobile robots, based on NMPC, in a low-cost board existent on the market, to provide sufficient com-putational resources so that the robot is able to converge, without losing performance, using the same horizons applied in a Laptop. The obtained results demonstrate the proposed scenario according with the experiments, proving that it is possible to use low cost boards, to a navigation system and control of mobile robots, based on NMPC, using the same predictive and control horizons applied in a Laptop.
A proposta desse trabalho é adaptar e embarcar um sistema de navegação e controle de robôs móveis, baseado em NMPC, em uma placa de baixo custo já existente no mercado, que dispo-nibilize recursos computacionais suficientes para que o Robô seja capaz de convergir, sem perda de desempenho e utilizando os mesmos horizontes aplicados em um Laptop. Os Resulta-dos obtidos demonstram todo o cenário proposto e de acordo com os experimentos realizados, comprovou-se que é possível o uso de placas de baixo custo, para controle de robôs móveis, baseado em NMPC, utilizando os mesmos horizontes de predição e controle aplicados em uma Laptop.

The need to have mechanisms and Technologies for the control of blood glucose levels is essential for people who have diabetes of any type. This disease still has no cure and is one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attack, stroke, renal complications etc. The number of diabetic people in the world and in Brazil is alarming, in addition, Brazilians occupy the fourth place in the world ranking according to the last survey of the year, 2015, made by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Several studies has been conducted in order to obtain the best glycemic control of people with diabetes, one of the current forms of control under investigation is the development of an artificial pancreas. Through the union of three systems: glucose monitoring system, control algorithm and actuator system through an insulin infusion pump, it is possible to obtain efficient results in glycemic control as they already have studies. This work consists of developing a prototype of a low-cost and low-power embedded control system, Hardware in Loop (HIL), based on Arduino nano microcontroller, which can control the blood glucose level of a model of a type 1 diabetes patient, considering some perturbations and noises, using the Kalman filter as estimator. The results obtained with the implementation of the controller are analyzed in order to obtain a better performance.
A necessidade de ter mecanismos e tecnologias para o controle dos níveis de glicose no sangue é essencial para pessoas que possuem diabetes de qualquer tipo, visto que esta é uma doença que ainda não possui cura e é um dos principais fatores de riscos para doenças cardiovasculares, como infarto, AVC, complicações renais e etc. O número de pessoas diabéticas no mundo e no Brasil é alarmante, além disso, tem-se que os brasileiros ocupam o quarto lugar no ranking mundial de acordo com o último levantamento no ano de 2015 feito pela International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Vários estudos têm sido realizados no intuito de obter o melhor controle da glicemia de pessoas com diabetes, uma das formas de controle que está sendo pesquisada atualmente é o desenvolvimento de um pâncreas artificial. Através da união de três sistemas, sendo estes: o de monitoramento da glicemia, o de algoritmo de controle e o de atuador através de bomba de infusão de insulina, é possível que sejam obtidos resultados eficientes no controle da glicemia como já têm mostrado alguns estudos. Este trabalho consiste em desenvolver um protótipo de um sistema de controle embarcado, Hardware in Loop (HIL), baseado no microcontrolador nano Arduino, de baixo custo e de baixo consumo de energia que possa controlar o nível de glicose no sangue de um modelo de um paciente com diabetes tipo 1, considerando algumas perturbações e ruídos, utilizando o filtro de Kalman como estimador. Os resultados obtidos com a implementação do controlador são analisados buscando a obtenção de um melhor desempenho.
São Cristóvão, SE

Online/offline signature schemes are useful in many situations, and two such scenarios are considered in this dissertation: bursty server authentication and embedded device authentication. In this dissertation, new techniques for online/offline signing are introduced, those are applied in a variety of ways for creating online/offline signature schemes, and five different online/offline signature schemes that are proved secure under a variety of models and assumptions are proposed. Two of the proposed five schemes have the best offline or best online performance of any currently known technique, and are particularly well-suited for the scenarios that are considered in this dissertation. To determine if the proposed schemes provide the expected practical improvements, a series of experiments were conducted comparing the proposed schemes with each other and with other state-of-the-art schemes in this area, both on a desktop class computer, and under AVR Studio, a simulation platform for an 8-bit processor that is popular for embedded systems. Under AVR Studio, the proposed SGE scheme using a typical key size for the embedded device authentication scenario, can complete the offline phase in about 24 seconds and then produce a signature (the online phase) in 15 milliseconds, which is the best offline performance of any known signature scheme that has been proven secure in the standard model. In the tests on a desktop class computer, the proposed SGS scheme, which has the best online performance and is designed for the bursty server authentication scenario, generated 469,109 signatures per second, and the Schnorr scheme (the next best scheme in terms of online performance) generated only 223,548 signatures. The experimental results demonstrate that the SGE and SGS schemes are the most efficient techniques for embedded device authentication and bursty server authentication, respectively.

Cette thèse traite de la synthèse et de la mise en œuvre en temps réel (RT) de schémas de contrôle prédictif non linéaire paramétré (pNMPC) pour les systèmes de suspension semi-active des automobiles. Le schéma pNMPC est basé sur une technique d'optimisation par simulation en boîte noire. Le point essentiel de la méthode est de paramétrer finement le profil d'entrée et de simuler le système pour chaque entrée paramétrée et d'obtenir la valeur approximative de l'objectif et de la violation des contraintes pour le problème pNMPC. Avec les résultats obtenus de la simulation, l'entrée admissible (si elle existe) ayant la valeur objective minimale ou, à défaut, la valeur de violation de contrainte la plus faible est sélectionnée et injectée dans le système et ceci est répété indéfiniment à chaque période de décision. La méthode a été validée expérimentalement sur dSPACE MicroAutoBoX II (MABXII) et les résultats montrent de bonnes performances de l'approche proposée. La méthode pNMPC a également été étendue à une méthode pNMPC parallélisée et la méthode proposée a été mise en œuvre pour le contrôle du système de suspension semi-active d'un demi-véhicule. Cette méthode a été mise en œuvre grâce à des unités de traitement graphique (GPU) qui servent de plate-forme modèle pour la mise en œuvre d'algorithmes parallèles par le biais de ses processeurs multi-cœurs. De plus, une version stochastique de la méthode pNMPC parallélisée est proposée sous le nom de schéma pNMPC à Scénario-Stochastique (SS-pNMPC). Cette méthode a été mise en œuvre et testée sur plusieurs cartes NVIDIA embarquées pour valider la faisabilité de la méthode proposée pour le contrôle du système de suspension semi-active d'un demi-véhicule. En général, les schémas pNMPC parallélisés offrent de bonnes performances et se prêtent bien à un large espace de paramétrage en entrée. Enfin, la thèse propose un outil logiciel appelé "pNMPC - A code generation software tool for implementation of derivative free pNMPC scheme for embedded control systems". L'outil logiciel de génération de code (S/W) a été programmé en C/C++ et propose également une interface avec MATLAB/Simulink. Le logiciel de génération de code a été testé pour divers exemples, tant en simulation que sur du matériel embarqué en temps réel (MABXII), et les résultats semblent prometteurs et viables pour la mise en œuvre de la RT pour des applications réelles. L'outil de génération de code S/W comprend également une fonction de génération de code GPU pour une mise en œuvre parallèle. Pour conclure, la thèse a été menée dans le cadre du projet EMPHYSIS et les objectifs du projet s'alignent sur cette thèse et les méthodes pNMPC proposées sont compatibles avec la norme eFMI
This thesis discusses the synthesis and real-time (RT) implementation of parameterized Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (pNMPC) schemes for automotive semi-active suspension systems. The pNMPC scheme uses a black-box simulation-based optimization method. The crux of the method is to finitely parameterize the input profile and simulate the system for each parameterized input and obtain the approximate objective and constraint violation value for the pNMPC problem. With the obtained results from the simulation, the input with minimum objective value or the least constraint violation value is selected and injected into the system and this is repeated in a receding horizon fashion. The method was experimentally validated on dSPACE MicroAutoBoX II (MABXII) and the results display good performance of the proposed approach. The pNMPC method was also augmented to parallelized pNMPC and the proposed method was implemented for control of semi-active suspension system for a half car vehicle. This method was implemented by virtue of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) which serves as a paragon platform for implementation of parallel algorithms through its multi-core processors. Also, a stochastic version of the parallelized pNMPC method is proposed which is termed as Scenario-Stochastic pNMPC (SS-pNMPC) scheme and the method was implemented and tested on several NVIDIA embedded boards to verify and validate the RT feasibility of the proposed method for control of semi-active suspension system for a half car vehicle. In general, the parallelized pNMPC schemes provide good performance and also, fares well for large input parameterization space. Finally, the thesis proposes a software tool termed “pNMPC – A code generation software tool for implementation of derivative free pNMPC scheme for embedded control systems”. The code generation software (S/W) tool was programmed in C/C++ and also, provides interface to MATLAB/Simulink. The S/W tested for variety of examples both in simulation as well as on RT embedded hardware (MABXII) and the results looks promising and viable for RT implementation for real world applications. The code generation S/W tool also includes GPU code generation feature for parallel implementation. To conclude, the thesis was conducted under the purview of the EMPHYSIS project and the goals of the project align with this thesis and the proposed pNMPC methods are amenable with eFMI standard

This work describes the modeling, control design, and experimental verification of an electromagnetic suspension system with position feedback using infrared sensors. A nonlinear model is obtained by fitting a first principle analytical model of the system to experimental data. A sliding control strategy is designed using a sliding surface derived from the model to achieve robust stabilization for the closed-loop system. The control is then implemented on an embedded commercial DSP system for experimental verification of the designed control on a laboratory scale electromagnetic suspension system. To compensate for the steady-state tracking error, two modifications are considered. In the first method, a small magnitude integral term is added to the error feedback, equivalently adjusting the reference signal and eliminating the constant bias. In the second method, an integral sliding control is considered, using a higher-order sliding surface, which also eliminates the constant bias. The experimental results show the efficacy of all designed control techniques. The modified techniques, unlike the original design, effectively eliminate the constant position error.

Veículos Submarinos Não Tripulados (UUVs Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) possuem muitas aplicações comerciais, militares e científicas devido ao seu elevado potencial e relação custo-desempenho considerável quando comparados a meios tradicionais utilizados para a obtenção de informações provenientes do meio subaquático. O desenvolvimento de uma plataforma de testes e amostragem confiável para estes veículos requer o projeto de um sistema completo além de exigir diversos e custosos experimentos realizados no mar para que as especificações possam ser devidamente validadas. Modelagem e simulação apresentam medidas de custo efetivo para o desenvolvimento de componentes preliminares do sistema (software e hardware), além de verificação e testes relacionados à execução de missões realizadas por veículos submarinos reduzindo, portanto, a ocorrência de potenciais falhas. Um ambiente de simulação preciso pode auxiliar engenheiros a encontrar erros ocultos contidos no software embarcado do UUV além de favorecer uma maior introspecção dentro da dinâmica e operação do veículo. Este trabalho descreve a implementação do algoritmo de controle de um UUV em ambiente MATLAB/SIMULINK, sua conversão automática para código compilável (em C++) e a verificação de seu funcionamento diretamente no computador embarcado por meio de simulações. Detalham-se os procedimentos necessários para permitir a conversão dos modelos em MATLAB para código C++, integração do software de controle com o sistema operacional de tempo real empregado no computador embarcado (VxWORKS) e a estratégia de simulação com Hardware In The Loop (HIL) desenvolvida - A principal contribuição deste trabalho é apresentar de forma racional uma estrutura de trabalho que facilite a implementação final do software de controle no computador embarcado a partir do modelo desenvolvido em um ambiente amigável para o projetista, como o SIMULINK.
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) have many commercial, military, and scientific applications because of their potential capabilities and significant costperformance improvements over traditional means of obtaining valuable underwater information The development of a reliable sampling and testing platform for these vehicles requires a thorough system design and many costly at-sea trials during which systems specifications can be validated. Modeling and simulation provide a cost-effective measure to carry out preliminary component, system (hardware and software), and mission testing and verification, thereby reducing the number of potential failures in at-sea trials. An accurate simulation environment can help engineers to find hidden errors in the UUV embedded software and gain insights into the UUV operation and dynamics. This work describes the implementation of a UUV\'s control algorithm using MATLAB/SIMULINK, its automatic conversion to an executable code (in C++) and the verification of its performance directly into the embedded computer using simulations. It is detailed the necessary procedure to allow the conversion of the models from MATLAB to C++ code, integration of the control software with the real time operating system used on the embedded computer (VxWORKS) and the developed strategy of Hardware in the loop Simulation (HILS). The Main contribution of this work is to present a rational framework to support the final implementation of the control software on the embedded computer, starting from the model developed on an environment friendly to the control engineers, like SIMULINK.

This thesis addresses several synthesis and optimization issues for embedded control systems. Examples of such systems are automotive and avionics systems in which physical processes are controlled by embedded computers through sensor and actuator interfaces. The execution of multiple control applications, spanning several computation and communication components, leads to a complex temporal behavior that affects control quality. The relationship between system timing and control quality is a key issue to consider across the control design and computer implementation phases in an integrated manner. We present such an integrated framework for scheduling, controller synthesis, and quality optimization for distributed embedded control systems. At runtime, an embedded control system may need to adapt to environmental changes that affect its workload and computational capacity. Examples of such changes, which inherently increase the design complexity, are mode changes, component failures, and resource usages of the running control applications. For these three cases, we present trade-offs among control quality, resource usage, and the time complexity of design and runtime algorithms for embedded control systems. The solutions proposed in this thesis have been validated by extensive experiments. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and importance of the presented techniques.

Le travail présenté dans ce mémoire concerne une méthode de conception sûre de systèmes(COTS). Un COTS est un composant matériel ou logiciel générique qui est naturellement conçu pour être réutilisable et cela se traduit par une forme de flexibilité dans la mise en oeuvre de sa fonctionnalité : en clair, une même fonction peut être réalisée par un ensemble (potentiellement infini) de scénarios différents, tous réalisables par le COTS. La complexité grandissante des fonctions implémentées fait que ces situations sont très difficiles à anticiper d'une part, et encore plus difficiles à éviter par un codage correct. Réaliser manuellement une fonction composite correcte sur un système de taille industrielle, s'avère être très coûteuse. Elle nécessite une connaissance approfondie du comportement des COTS assemblés. Or cette connaissance est souvent manquante, vu qu'il s'agit de composants acquis, ou développés par un tiers, et dont la documentation porte sur la description de leur fonction et non sur sa mise en IJuvre. Par ailleurs, il arrive souvent que la correction manuelle d'une faute engendre une ou plusieurs autres fautes, provoquant un cercle vicieux difficile à maîtriser. En plus, le fait de modifier le code d'un composant diminue l'avantage lié à sa réutilisation. C'est dans ce contexte que nous proposons l'utilisation de la technique de synthèse du contrôleur discret (SCD) pour générer automatiquement du code de contrôle commande correct par construction. Cette technique produit des composants, nommés contrôleurs, qui agissent en contraignant le comportement d'un (ou d'un assemblage de) COTS afin de garantir si possible la satisfaction d'une exigence fonctionnelle. La méthode que nous proposons possède plusieurs étapes de conception. La première étape concerne la formalisation des COTS et des propriété de sûreté et de vivacité (P) en modèles automate à états et/ou en logique temporelle. L'étape suivante concerne la vérification formelle du modèle d'un(des) COTS pour l'ensemble des propriétés (P). Cette étape découvrir les états de violation des propriétés (P) appelés états d'erreur. La troisième étape concerne la correction automatique des erreurs détectées en utilisant la technique SCD. Dans cette étape génère on génère un composant correcteur qui sera assemblé au(x) COTS original(aux) pour que leur comportement général respecte les propriétés souhaitées. L'étape suivante concerne la vérification du système contrôlé pour un ensemble de propriétés de vivacité pour assurer la passivité du contrôleur et la vivacité du système. En fin, une étape de simulation est proposée pour observer le comportement du système pour quelque scénarios intéressent par rapport à son implémentation finale.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la validation temporelle ainsi qu'au déploiement d'applications de contrôle industriel à base de composants. La technologie des composants retenue est celle des Blocs Fonctionnels définie dans la norme industrielle IEC 61499. Un Bloc Fonctionnel est défini comme un composant réactif supportant des fonctionnalités d'une application. L'avantage de cette norme, connue dans l'industrie, est la description statique de l'application ainsi que de son support d'exécution. Une première contribution de la thèse est l'interprétation des différents concepts définis dans la norme. Nous précisons, en particulier, la dynamique du composant en vue de décrire un comportement déterministe de l'application. Pour appliquer une validation temporelle exhaustive, nous proposons un modèle de comportement d'un Bloc Fonctionnel à l'aide du formalisme des automates temporisés. D'autre part, nous fournissons une sémantique au concept de réseau de Blocs Fonctionnels pour décrire une application comme une composition de Blocs. Une deuxième contribution de la thèse est le déploiement de tels réseaux sur une architecture distribuée multi-tâches tout en respectant des propriétés sur les temps de réponse de bout en bout. Nous transformons un réseau de Blocs Fonctionnels vers un ensemble de tâches élémentaires dépendantes, appelées actions. Cette transformation permet l'exploitation de résultats d'ordonnancement pour valider la correction temporelle de l'application. Pour déployer les blocs d'une application, nous proposons une approche hybride alliant un ordonnancement statique non-préemptif et un autre ordonnancement en ligne préemptif. L'ordonnancement statique permet la construction des tâches s'exécutant sur chaque calculateur. Ces tâches sont vues comme des séquencements statiques d'actions. Elles sont alors à ordonnancer dynamiquement selon une politique préemptive reposant sur EDF (Earliest Deadline First). Grâce à cette approche, nous réduisons le nombre de commutation de contexte en regroupant les actions au sein des tâches. De plus l'ordonnancement dynamique préemptif augmente la faisabilité du système. Enfin, une dernière contribution est une extension de la deuxième. Nous proposons une approche d'allocation de réseaux de blocs fonctionnels sur un support d'exécution distribué. Cette allocation, basée sur une heuristique de Liste, se repose sur la méthode hybride pour assurer un déploiement faisable de l'application. Le problème d'allocation est de trouver pour chaque bloc fonctionnel le calculateur capable de l'exécuter tout en respectant des contraintes fonctionnelles, temporelles et de support d'exécution. Notons enfin que l'heuristique proposée se base sur une technique de retour-arrière pour augmenter l'espace de solutions
This thesis deals with the temporal validation and the deployment of component-based industrial control applications. We are interested in the Function Blocks approach, defined in the IEC 61499 standard, as a well known component based technology in the industry. A Function Block is an event triggered component owning data to support the application functionalities. The advantage of this technology is the taking into account of the application and also its execution support. The first thesis contribution deals with the interpretation of the different concepts defined in the standard. In particular, we propose a policy defining a deterministic behavior of a FB. To apply an exhaustive temporal validation of the application, we propose a behavioral model of a Block as Timed Automata. On the other hand, we propose a semantic for the concept of FBs networks to develop industrial control applications. The second thesis contribution deals with the deployment of FBs networks in a distributed multi-tasking architecture. Such deployment has to respect classical End to End Response Time Bounds as temporal constraints. To validate the temporal behavior of an application, we propose an approach transforming its blocks into an actions system with precedence constraints. The purpose is to exploit previous theories on the scheduling of real-time systems. To deploy FBs networks in feasible OS tasks, we propose a Hybrid scheduling approach combining an off-line non-preemptive scheduling and an on-line preemptive one. The off-line scheduling allows to construct OS tasks from FBs, whereas the on-line one allows to schedule these tasks according to the classical EDF policy. A constructed OS task is an actions sequence defining an execution scenario of the application. Thanks to this approach, we reduce the context switching at run-time by merging application actions in OS tasks. In addition, the system feasibility is increased by applying an on-line preemptive policy. Finally, the last thesis contribution is an extension of the previous one. We propose an approach allocating FBs networks in a distributed architecture. Based on a heuristic, such approach uses the hybrid method to construct feasible OS tasks in calculators. The allocation problem of a particular application FB is to look for a corresponding calculator while respecting functional, temporal and execution support constraints. We note that the proposed heuristic is based on a back-tracking technic to increase the solutions space

La domanda globale di energia elettrica è in continua crescita, al doppio del tasso di crescita del consumo di energia primaria. Un uso efficiente dell'energia, detto in altri termini "efficienza energetica", ha come obiettivo ridurre la quantità di energia richiesta per fornire i diversi prodotti e servizi. Progressivamente diventerà obbligatoria per l'utente finale una sempre più chiara transizione dal combustibile primario verso sistemi di energia elettrica e l'efficienza energetica così come l'integrazione delle energie rinnovabili diventeranno una delle principali sfide del futuro. L'elettronica di potenza svolgerà un ruolo fondamentale nel cambiamento di questo paradigma. Nella generazione di energia elettrica vi sarà un importante migrazione alle fonti rinnovabili come future fonti energietiche. Nel campo dell'elettronica di potenza, quattro ambiti applicativi devono necessariamente essere presi in considerazione quando si parla di efficienza energetica: motori elettrici, convertitori di potenza, illuminazione a LED e HVDC. In questa tesi è stata riportata una discussione dettagliata dei principali convertitori di potenza e sono state introdotte delle variazioni in alcuni modelli per rendere gli stessi più adatti alla rappresentazione del comportamento dei convertitori per particolari topologie o modalità di funzionamento. Sono stati proposti e argomentati alcuni controllori basati su passività per la correzione del fattore di potenza; essi sono risultati particolarmente adatti a scenari applicativi come quello del controllo motori o dell'illuminazione a LED. E' stato inoltre presentato un controllore PI basato su passività per il tracking globale valido per sistemi rappresentabili nella forma bilineare: particolarmente interessante è l'esempio applicativo riportato, relativo all'ambito del controllo HVDC. Inoltre è stato elaborato un controllore sliding mode robusto alle variazioni di carico per la regolazione della tensione di uscita nei regolatori DC--DC. Infine sono stati progettati degli osservatori di corrente per convertitori boost con l'obiettivo di rendere superfluo l'utilizzo dei costosi sensori di corrente in questa topologia. Ciascun algoritmo è stato testato numericamente e la maggior parte di essi è stata anche implementata su piattaforme embedded e provata in laboratorio con l'obiettivo di verificarne e valutarne le prestazioni. Le prove sperimentali sono state effettuate nel Laboratorio di Robotica Avanzata del DII presso l'Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, nel Laboratory of Energy Department presso il Supélec, Paris e nel Laboratoire de Signaux et Systémes presso il Supélec, Paris.
The global demand for electrical energy is growing continuously, at double the growth rate of primary energy consumption. Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. A clear transition to more electric energy systems is mandatory as energy efficiency from primary fuel to the enduser and the integration of renewables are the future key challenges. Power electronics will play a key role in this paradigm shift to more renewable electrical energy and higher energy efficiency in multiple applications. In electrical energy generation a major shift to renewables as sources of future electrical energy will happen. In the field of Power Electronics four topics must be taken into account talking about energy efficiency: electrical motors, power converters, LED lighting and HVDC. In this thesis a detailed discussion on the modelling of the most known power converters has been made and some more accurate models have been proposed to better represent the behaviour of particular topologies or working modes. Passivity-Based controllers for power factor control have been proposed and argued; they resulted particularly suited in the motor control and in the LED lighting applicative fields. A global tracking passivity–based PI controller for bilinear systems has been proposed: an example application has been presented in the field of HVDC control. Furthermore, a sliding-mode robust to load variations controller for output voltage regulation in DC--DC converters has been presented. Finally inductor current observers for the boost topology has been illustrated with the aim of making superfluous the use of expensive sensors in this topology. Each proposed algorithm has been numerically tested and many of them has been experimentally verified on embedded platforms and their performances evaluated. Experimental tests have been done in the Laboratory of Advanced Robotics of DII at Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, in the Laboratory of Energy Department at Supélec, Paris and in the Laboratoire de Signaux et Systémes at Supélec, Paris.

A Cyber-physical System (CPS) can be described as a network of interlinked, concurrent computational components that interact with the physical world. Such a system is usually of reactive nature and must satisfy strict timing requirements to guarantee a correct behaviour. The components can be of mixed-criticality which implies different progress models and communication models, depending whether the focus of a component lies on predictability or resource efficiency. In this dissertation I present a novel approach that bridges the gap between stream processing models and Labelled Transition Systems (LTSs). The former offer powerful tools to describe concurrent systems of, usually simple, components while the latter allow to describe complex, reactive, components and their mutual interaction. In order to achieve the bridge between the two domains I introduce the novel LTS Synchronous Interface Automaton (SIA) that allows to model the interaction protocol of a process via its interface and to incrementally compose simple processes into more complex ones while preserving the system properties. Exploiting these properties I introduce an analysis to identify permanent blocking situations in a network of composed processes. SIAs are wrapped by the novel component-based coordination model Process Network with Synchronous Communication (PNSC) that allows to describe a network of concurrent processes where multiple communication models and the co-existence and interaction of heterogeneous processes is supported due to well defined interfaces. The work presented in this dissertation follows a holistic approach which spans from the theory of the underlying model to an instantiation of the model as a novel coordination language, called Streamix. The language uses network operators to compose networks of concurrent processes in a structured and hierarchical way. The work is validated by a prototype implementation of a compiler and a Run-time System (RTS) that allows to compile a Streamix program and execute it on a platform with support for ISO C, POSIX threads, and a Linux operating system.

[ES] La utilización de sistemas empotrados en cada vez más ámbitos de aplicación está llevando a que su diseño deba enfrentarse a mayores requisitos de rendimiento, consumo de energía y área (PPA). Asimismo, su utilización en aplicaciones críticas provoca que deban cumplir con estrictos requisitos de confiabilidad para garantizar su correcto funcionamiento durante períodos prolongados de tiempo. En particular, el uso de dispositivos lógicos programables de tipo FPGA es un gran desafío desde la perspectiva de la confiabilidad, ya que estos dispositivos son muy sensibles a la radiación. Por todo ello, la confiabilidad debe considerarse como uno de los criterios principales para la toma de decisiones a lo largo del todo flujo de diseño, que debe complementarse con diversos procesos que permitan alcanzar estrictos requisitos de confiabilidad. Primero, la evaluación de la robustez del diseño permite identificar sus puntos débiles, guiando así la definición de mecanismos de tolerancia a fallos. Segundo, la eficacia de los mecanismos definidos debe validarse experimentalmente. Tercero, la evaluación comparativa de la confiabilidad permite a los diseñadores seleccionar los componentes prediseñados (IP), las tecnologías de implementación y las herramientas de diseño (EDA) más adecuadas desde la perspectiva de la confiabilidad. Por último, la exploración del espacio de diseño (DSE) permite configurar de manera óptima los componentes y las herramientas seleccionados, mejorando así la confiabilidad y las métricas PPA de la implementación resultante. Todos los procesos anteriormente mencionados se basan en técnicas de inyección de fallos para evaluar la robustez del sistema diseñado. A pesar de que existe una amplia variedad de técnicas de inyección de fallos, varias problemas aún deben abordarse para cubrir las necesidades planteadas en el flujo de diseño. Aquellas soluciones basadas en simulación (SBFI) deben adaptarse a los modelos de nivel de implementación, teniendo en cuenta la arquitectura de los diversos componentes de la tecnología utilizada. Las técnicas de inyección de fallos basadas en FPGAs (FFI) deben abordar problemas relacionados con la granularidad del análisis para poder localizar los puntos débiles del diseño. Otro desafío es la reducción del coste temporal de los experimentos de inyección de fallos. Debido a la alta complejidad de los diseños actuales, el tiempo experimental dedicado a la evaluación de la confiabilidad puede ser excesivo incluso en aquellos escenarios más simples, mientras que puede ser inviable en aquellos procesos relacionados con la evaluación de múltiples configuraciones alternativas del diseño. Por último, estos procesos orientados a la confiabilidad carecen de un soporte instrumental que permita cubrir el flujo de diseño con toda su variedad de lenguajes de descripción de hardware, tecnologías de implementación y herramientas de diseño. Esta tesis aborda los retos anteriormente mencionados con el fin de integrar, de manera eficaz, estos procesos orientados a la confiabilidad en el flujo de diseño. Primeramente, se proponen nuevos métodos de inyección de fallos que permiten una evaluación de la confiabilidad, precisa y detallada, en diferentes niveles del flujo de diseño. Segundo, se definen nuevas técnicas para la aceleración de los experimentos de inyección que mejoran su coste temporal. Tercero, se define dos estrategias DSE que permiten configurar de manera óptima (desde la perspectiva de la confiabilidad) los componentes IP y las herramientas EDA, con un coste experimental mínimo. Cuarto, se propone un kit de herramientas que automatiza e incorpora con eficacia los procesos orientados a la confiabilidad en el flujo de diseño semicustom. Finalmente, se demuestra la utilidad y eficacia de las propuestas mediante un caso de estudio en el que se implementan tres procesadores empotrados en un FPGA de Xilinx serie 7.
[CA] La utilització de sistemes encastats en cada vegada més àmbits d'aplicació està portant al fet que el seu disseny haja d'enfrontar-se a majors requisits de rendiment, consum d'energia i àrea (PPA). Així mateix, la seua utilització en aplicacions crítiques provoca que hagen de complir amb estrictes requisits de confiabilitat per a garantir el seu correcte funcionament durant períodes prolongats de temps. En particular, l'ús de dispositius lògics programables de tipus FPGA és un gran desafiament des de la perspectiva de la confiabilitat, ja que aquests dispositius són molt sensibles a la radiació. Per tot això, la confiabilitat ha de considerar-se com un dels criteris principals per a la presa de decisions al llarg del tot flux de disseny, que ha de complementar-se amb diversos processos que permeten aconseguir estrictes requisits de confiabilitat. Primer, l'avaluació de la robustesa del disseny permet identificar els seus punts febles, guiant així la definició de mecanismes de tolerància a fallades. Segon, l'eficàcia dels mecanismes definits ha de validar-se experimentalment. Tercer, l'avaluació comparativa de la confiabilitat permet als dissenyadors seleccionar els components predissenyats (IP), les tecnologies d'implementació i les eines de disseny (EDA) més adequades des de la perspectiva de la confiabilitat. Finalment, l'exploració de l'espai de disseny (DSE) permet configurar de manera òptima els components i les eines seleccionats, millorant així la confiabilitat i les mètriques PPA de la implementació resultant. Tots els processos anteriorment esmentats es basen en tècniques d'injecció de fallades per a poder avaluar la robustesa del sistema dissenyat. A pesar que existeix una àmplia varietat de tècniques d'injecció de fallades, diverses problemes encara han d'abordar-se per a cobrir les necessitats plantejades en el flux de disseny. Aquelles solucions basades en simulació (SBFI) han d'adaptar-se als models de nivell d'implementació, tenint en compte l'arquitectura dels diversos components de la tecnologia utilitzada. Les tècniques d'injecció de fallades basades en FPGAs (FFI) han d'abordar problemes relacionats amb la granularitat de l'anàlisi per a poder localitzar els punts febles del disseny. Un altre desafiament és la reducció del cost temporal dels experiments d'injecció de fallades. A causa de l'alta complexitat dels dissenys actuals, el temps experimental dedicat a l'avaluació de la confiabilitat pot ser excessiu fins i tot en aquells escenaris més simples, mentre que pot ser inviable en aquells processos relacionats amb l'avaluació de múltiples configuracions alternatives del disseny. Finalment, aquests processos orientats a la confiabilitat manquen d'un suport instrumental que permeta cobrir el flux de disseny amb tota la seua varietat de llenguatges de descripció de maquinari, tecnologies d'implementació i eines de disseny. Aquesta tesi aborda els reptes anteriorment esmentats amb la finalitat d'integrar, de manera eficaç, aquests processos orientats a la confiabilitat en el flux de disseny. Primerament, es proposen nous mètodes d'injecció de fallades que permeten una avaluació de la confiabilitat, precisa i detallada, en diferents nivells del flux de disseny. Segon, es defineixen noves tècniques per a l'acceleració dels experiments d'injecció que milloren el seu cost temporal. Tercer, es defineix dues estratègies DSE que permeten configurar de manera òptima (des de la perspectiva de la confiabilitat) els components IP i les eines EDA, amb un cost experimental mínim. Quart, es proposa un kit d'eines (DAVOS) que automatitza i incorpora amb eficàcia els processos orientats a la confiabilitat en el flux de disseny semicustom. Finalment, es demostra la utilitat i eficàcia de les propostes mitjançant un cas d'estudi en el qual s'implementen tres processadors encastats en un FPGA de Xilinx serie 7.
[EN] Embedded systems are steadily extending their application areas, dealing with increasing requirements in performance, power consumption, and area (PPA). Whenever embedded systems are used in safety-critical applications, they must also meet rigorous dependability requirements to guarantee their correct operation during an extended period of time. Meeting these requirements is especially challenging for those systems that are based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), since they are very susceptible to Single Event Upsets. This leads to increased dependability threats, especially in harsh environments. In such a way, dependability should be considered as one of the primary criteria for decision making throughout the whole design flow, which should be complemented by several dependability-driven processes. First, dependability assessment quantifies the robustness of hardware designs against faults and identifies their weak points. Second, dependability-driven verification ensures the correctness and efficiency of fault mitigation mechanisms. Third, dependability benchmarking allows designers to select (from a dependability perspective) the most suitable IP cores, implementation technologies, and electronic design automation (EDA) tools. Finally, dependability-aware design space exploration (DSE) allows to optimally configure the selected IP cores and EDA tools to improve as much as possible the dependability and PPA features of resulting implementations. The aforementioned processes rely on fault injection testing to quantify the robustness of the designed systems. Despite nowadays there exists a wide variety of fault injection solutions, several important problems still should be addressed to better cover the needs of a dependability-driven design flow. In particular, simulation-based fault injection (SBFI) should be adapted to implementation-level HDL models to take into account the architecture of diverse logic primitives, while keeping the injection procedures generic and low-intrusive. Likewise, the granularity of FPGA-based fault injection (FFI) should be refined to the enable accurate identification of weak points in FPGA-based designs. Another important challenge, that dependability-driven processes face in practice, is the reduction of SBFI and FFI experimental effort. The high complexity of modern designs raises the experimental effort beyond the available time budgets, even in simple dependability assessment scenarios, and it becomes prohibitive in presence of alternative design configurations. Finally, dependability-driven processes lack an instrumental support covering the semicustom design flow in all its variety of description languages, implementation technologies, and EDA tools. Existing fault injection tools only partially cover the individual stages of the design flow, being usually specific to a particular design representation level and implementation technology. This work addresses the aforementioned challenges by efficiently integrating dependability-driven processes into the design flow. First, it proposes new SBFI and FFI approaches that enable an accurate and detailed dependability assessment at different levels of the design flow. Second, it improves the performance of dependability-driven processes by defining new techniques for accelerating SBFI and FFI experiments. Third, it defines two DSE strategies that enable the optimal dependability-aware tuning of IP cores and EDA tools, while reducing as much as possible the robustness evaluation effort. Fourth, it proposes a new toolkit (DAVOS) that automates and seamlessly integrates the aforementioned dependability-driven processes into the semicustom design flow. Finally, it illustrates the usefulness and efficiency of these proposals through a case study consisting of three soft-core embedded processors implemented on a Xilinx 7-series SoC FPGA.
Tuzov, I. (2020). Dependability-driven Strategies to Improve the Design and Verification of Safety-Critical HDL-based Embedded Systems [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/159883
TESIS

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Capes
O desenvolvimento de sistemas embarcados possibilitou uma forte expansão no número de aplicações dependentes de dispositivos programáveis em áreas tão distintas como automobilística, sistemas financeiros e sistemas médicos. Uma eventual falha em algum desses sistemas pode provocar diferentes graus de danos e prejuízos e, por isso, exige-se um alto grau de confiabilidade em seu funcionamento. O aumento da complexidade dos novos sistemas computacionais e a pressão econômica e busca de novos mercados, concorrem para a busca da redução nos prazos de entrega dos dispositivos programáveis e de seus softwares e sistemas embarcados. Este trabalho apresenta um estudo de caso para a utilização de um método de verificação formal de software aplicado a um sistema computacional de controle de fluxo adaptativo para Gateways Bluetooth Low-Energy utilizados em sistemas de monitoramento remoto de pacientes. Os resultados obtidos neste trabalho confirmam a viabilidade da aplicação do método na verificação formal do software proposto.
The embedded system development had a positive impact on the expansion of applications dependent on programmable devices inside many areas such as automotive industry, financial services, and medical systems. A failure in any of these systems can cause losses and damages on many levels. Therefore, embedded systems require a high level of reliability while operating. The increasing complexity of these new computational systems, the cost-effective pressure, and the new market demand, contribute to reduce the delivery deadlines of the programmable devices, their softwares, and embedded systems. This research presents a case study in which we evaluated the usage of a formal verification method applied to a computational controlling system, with adaptive flow, for Gateway Bluetooth Low Energy used in patient monitoring systems. The results obtained in this study confirm the application feasibility of the formal verification method of the proposed software.

The basic aim of this work is to improve existing model of rotational inverted pendulum by adding new mechanical features, implement the control algorithm to dsPIC microcontroller and develop related control electronics thus extending the functionality of current model while making it more compact. The work contains derivation of dynamic equations both by means of analytical methods and multi-body formalism of SimMechanics. These are used to design a state controller stabilizing the pendulum in inverse position. In addition, parameters of the system are being estimated experimentally. Swing-up controller is developed to drive the pendulum to unstable position. Various state estimators are added to controller to improve the control process while comparing their overall performance. The last point is devoted to development of superior state-automaton designed to switch between different regulating modes including fail-detection algorithms providing smooth operation of the model.

A systemic mock circulatory loop plays a pivotal role as the in vitro assessment tool for left heart medical devices. The standard design employed by many research groups dates to the early 1970's, and lacks the acuity needed for the advanced device designs currently being explored. The necessity to update the architecture of this in vitro tool has become apparent as the historical design fails to deliver the performance needed to simulate conditions and events that have been clinically identified as challenges for future device designs. In order to appropriately deliver the testing solution needed, a comprehensive evaluation of the functionality demanded must be understood. The resulting system is a fully automated systemic mock circulatory loop, inclusive of anatomical geometries at critical flow sections, and accompanying software tools to execute precise investigations of cardiac device performance. Delivering this complete testing solution will be achieved through three research aims: (1) Utilization of advanced physical modeling tools to develop a high fidelity computational model of the in vitro system. This model will enable control design of the logic that will govern the in vitro actuators, allow experimental settings to be evaluated prior to execution in the mock circulatory loop, and determination of system settings that replicate clinical patient data. (2) Deployment of a fully automated mock circulatory loop that allows for runtime control of all the settings needed to appropriately construct the conditions of interest. It is essential that the system is able to change set point on the fly; simulation of cardiovascular dynamics and event sequences require this functionality. The robustness of an automated system with incorporated closed loop control logic yields a mock circulatory loop with excellent reproducibility, which is essential for effective device evaluation. (3) Incorporating anatomical geometry at the critical device interfaces; ascending aorta and left atrium. These anatomies represent complex shapes; the flows present in these sections are complex and greatly affect device performance. Increasing the fidelity of the local flow fields at these interfaces delivers a more accurate representation of the device performance in vivo.

The use of SMPS (Switched mode power supply) in embedded systems is continuously increasing. The technological requirements of these systems include simultaneously a very good voltage regulation and a strong compactness of components. SEPIC ( Single-Ended Primary Inductor Converter) is a DC/DC switching converter which possesses several advantages with regard to the other classical converters. Due to the difficulty in control of its 4th-order and non linear property, it is still not well-exploited. The objective of this work is the development of successful strategies of control for a SEPIC converter on one hand and on the other hand the effective implementation of the control algorithm developed for embedded applications (FPGA, ASIC) where the constraints of Silicon surface and the loss reduction factor are important. To do it, two non linear controls and two observers of states and load have been studied: a control and an observer based on the principle of sliding mode, a deadbeat predictive control and an Extended Kalman observer. The implementation of both control laws and the Extended Kalman observer are implemented in FPGA. An 11-bit digital PWM has been developed by combining a 4-bit Δ-Σ modulation, a 4-bit segmented DCM (Digital Clock Management) phase-shift and a 3-bit counter-comparator. All the proposed approaches are experimentally validated and constitute a good base for the integration of embedded switching mode converters

Ce travail propose une méthodologie de conception du contrôle pour les systèmes reconfigurables sur FPGA, visant à améliorer la productivité des concepteurs et assurer l'efficacité de l'implémentation. Cette méthodologie est basée sur un modèle de contrôle semi-distribué qui se compose d'un ensemble de contrôleurs distribués modulaires assurant chacun les tâches d'observation, de prise de décision et de reconfiguration pour une région reconfigurable du système, et d'un coordinateur entre les décisions des contrôleurs distribués afin de respecter les contraintes et objectifs globaux du système. Cette prise de décision semi-distribuée est basée sur le formalisme des automates de modes. Cette combinaison entre modularité, division du contrôle et formalisme permet d'améliorer la flexibilité, réutilisabilité et scalabilité de la conception du contrôle. Un autre point peut être ajouté à cette combinaison pour améliorer la productivité des concepteurs, qui est l'automatisation. Pour cela, la méthodologie proposée est basée sur une approche d'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles permettant d'automatiser la génération du code à partir de modèles de haut-niveau d'abstraction. Cette approche fait usage du profil standard MARTE (Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded Systems), permettant de rendre les détails techniques de bas niveau transparents aux concepteurs et d'automatiser la génération du code VHDL pour une implémentation matérielle des systèmes de contrôle modélisés afin d'assurer leur performance. Les systèmes de contrôle générés ont été validés par simulation. Les résultats de synthèse ont montré un coût acceptable en termes de temps d'exécution et de ressources pour des systèmes ayant différents nombres de contrôleurs. Un système de contrôle composé de quatre contrôleurs et d'un coordinateur a été également validé par implémentation physique dans un système FPGA pour une application de traitement d'images.

The primary aim of this thesis is to investigate the small-signal dynamic performance of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission links based on voltage source converter (VSC) technology operating in parallel with the existing longitudinal Australian power system. This thesis presents the principle design methodology to achieve robust controllers for VSCs including inner current controller, outer power and voltage controllers as well as the supplementary damping controllers for enhancing the small-disturbance rotor-angle stability of a weak multi-machine power system with embedded VSC-HVDC links. Three types of linear current controller schemes (proportional-integral, proportional-resonant and Dead-Beat schemes) are investigated and discussed in detail to identify the most suitable control method. Due to its wider bandwidth and superior performance under unbalanced operating conditions, the Dead Beat current controller is set as the inner current controller that has not been analysed in detail in the literature. A new methodology for the selection and optimization of the parameters of the proportional-integral compensators in the various control loops of a VSC-HVDC transmission system using a decoupled control strategy is also proposed in this thesis. It was found that the new methodology is effective in a relatively strong system. However, since the method did not take various operating conditions and system disturbances into account, it will not be effective in a relatively weak system. The analysis shows that the design of robust outer loop controllers is challenging due to the limited bandwidth of the inner current controller in a weak AC system. Therefore, the second primary objective of the project was to develop a simple fixed parameter controller, which can perform well over a wide range of operating points within the active/reactive power (PQ) capability chart of the VSCs. To achieve this second objective, various grid conditions including various Short Circuit Ratios (SCRs), different X/R ratios and PQ capabilities of the VSC system were studied. To support the primary objectives, a detailed higher order small-signal model of the DB controlled VSC is developed and systematically verified. As an original contribution, the study developed a new methodology to linearize the modulator/demodulator blocks which are used to develop the small signal models for several key components such as the sampling block, the delay block and the DB inner current controller. The initial values of the PI/PID compensator parameters are obtained by applying the classical frequency response design methods to a set of detailed linear models of the open-loop transfer functions of the VSC-HVDC control system. It was concluded that an iterative process may be required after examining the co-operation performance of these controllers designed. In the final chapter of this thesis, the small-signal rotor-angle stability of a model of the Australian power system with embedded VSC based HVDC links was examined. For the analytical purposes of this thesis a simplified model of the Australian power system is used to connect the high capacity, but as yet undeveloped, geothermal resource in the region of Innamincka in northern South Australia via a 1,100 km HVDC link to Armidale in northern New South Wales. It is observed that the introduction of the new source of geothermal power generation has an adverse impact on the damping performance of the system. Therefore, two forms of stabilization are examined: (i) generator power system stabilisers (PSS) fitted to the synchronous machines which are used to convert geothermal energy to electrical power; and (ii) power oscillation damping controllers (PODs) fitted to the VSC-HVDC link. In the case of the PODs two types of stabilizing input signals are considered: (i) local signals such as power flow in adjacent AC lines and (ii) wide-area signals such as bus voltage angles at key nodes in the various regions of the system. It was concluded that the small-signal rotor-angle stability of the interconnected AC/DC system has been greatly enhanced by employing the designed damping controllers.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2013

Dwindling fossil fuel resources and the concern for greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels have led to significant development of renewable energy in many countries. While renewable energy takes many forms, solar and wind resources are being harvested in commercial scale in many parts of the world. Government incentives such as Renewable Energy Certificates and Feed-in Tariffs have contributed to the rapid uptake. Australia, per capita of population, has topped the world in the penetration of residential roof-top solar generation systems. With electricity consumers of only 10 million, there are almost 1.5 million grid connected residential solar installations approaching 5,000MW of installed capacity in June 2016, and the number continues to grow. These residential PV generations are embedded in the Low Voltage (LV) networks that were traditionally designed to take one-way flow of electricity only. As the number of embedded solar generators increases, customers begin to experience voltage quality problems.

A thesis submitted in candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Electrical Engineering, Technikon Natal, 2001.
This thesis details a study conducted to investigate the dynamic stability of an existing active control model (ACFl) of a composite structure embedded with a piezoelectric sensor and actuator for the purpose of vibration measurement and control. Criteria for stability are established based on the second method of Lyapunov which considers the energy of the system. Results show that ACFl is asymptotically stable although piezoelectric control effects persist when the feedback gain is set to zero. Meanwhile, it is required that there should be no control effects occurring through the piezoelectric actuator when the gain is set to zero. In this study, a new active control model (ACF2) is developed to satisfy the stability criteria, which satisfies the requirement of no piezoelectric control effects when the gain is set to zero. In ACF2 - as well as ACFl - the displacement and potential fields are discretised using the finite element method. In light of the locking phenomena associated with discrete displacements - which is expected to be pronounced in the case of discrete potentials due to their element geometry, ACF2-mixed is developed. ACF2 and ACF2-mixed control methodologies are similar except that in ACF2 both the displacement and potential field are discretised whereas in ACF2-mixed, only the displacement field is discretised and the potential field is continuous. Consequent to ACF2 and ACF2-mixed, stability analysis of the resulting time integration scheme is investigated as well. The results show that the damping forces due to the piezoelectric effect do not add energy to the structure. Hence, asymptotic stability is achieved. The time integration scheme yielded a small error, consistent with the literature. Numerical results revealed that ACFl exhibits a high degree of locking which is relaxed in ACF2 whereas ACF2-mixed exhibits envisaged results when compared with the other two models. Therefore, the ACF2 and ACF2-mixed will provide engineers with an alternative simulation model to solve actively controlled vibration problems hitherto.
D