The increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in applications such as logistics, environmental monitoring, infrastructure inspections, and precision agriculture has brought new safety and operational efficiency challenges. In this context, ensuring collision avoidance in operations with multiple UAVs in shared spaces has become a priority. This work proposes a framework based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), designed to optimize collaborative trajectory planning and collision avoidance in dynamic environments, which include static and moving obstacles. The approach combines LiDAR sensors with Detection And Avoidance (DAA) algorithms. These systems allow UAVs to identify and avoid obstacles accurately, even in dense urban scenarios and with inaccurate sensors. In addition, the framework promotes collaboration between UAVs through decentralized architectures, allowing greater efficiency in the use of airspace and reducing overlap in shared missions. Performed simulations have shown that the proposed approach provides improvement in movement safety. The results show that the system is adaptable in dynamic scenarios, making it promising for applications in complex airspaces.

This article presents a method for generating a dataset from CAN protocol communication using a test bench based on the IEC 62228-2019 standard. Modern automotive embedded systems feature many electronic control units for engine control, ABS, traction control, and power steering. Ensuring reliability and effectiveness, consistent testing, and data analysis are essential. This article proposes a testing approach to verify and record CAN communication under disturbances, using a redundant channel and a fault injection method with specially developed hardware. Different injected noise values were defined based on prior work. A sequence of tests applying the hardware-in-the-loop approach generates valuable preprocessed datasets. The results show that the proposed method records all CAN communication data, producing around 15 million records. This dataset enables detailed analysis of EFT fault propagation in the CAN network from various vehicle noise sources, providing a foundation for future data-driven diagnostic systems development.

Digital Twin (DT) is a core concept in the digitalization process in the Industry 4.0 and upcoming innovations such as Industry 5.0 and Metaverse. This digitalization can result in a huge amount of data that has not been collected before and now can help to understand and optimize processes and products. However, an important challenge is to really understand what the data can mean and then find out new information and knowledge that can be used for further optimizations. Therefore, it is important to have the virtual representations that the DT proposes as close as possible to the real-world application in a way that it can be understood in the same way by different people and systems. In this context, semantics annotations can be used to organize data by inserting knowledge into the model and providing a common understanding of a specific concept. This paper proposes a methodology for creating semantic digital twin models using the well-known tool called Node-RED. A sequence of steps is described that covers data acquisition, semantics annotations to this incoming data, assets modeling with their relationships which generates a graph of nodes and connections that is saved into a graph database. To be able to realize such a model, 7 so-called nodes have been developed for Node-RED. Finally, a use case has been implemented to demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology.

This paper presents a study about a runtime mechanism to monitor the performance degradation in intra-vehicular networks. The proposed mechanism focuses on the integration of fault modeling in communication protocols, as non-functional requirements (NFR), using aspect-oriented modeling (AOM), to model the performance degradation generated by faults, linking test and design phases of distributed control systems. A case study analyzing the mechanism performance in both CAN and CAN-FD protocols was conducted considering the NFR specification related to fault disturbances. In order to evaluate and simulate the mechanism under real fault scenarios, an active suspension control system was considered as an example of a critical control system and faults were injected using the hardware Vector VH6501 (CAN disturbance interface). The network performance analysis was made based on the software Vector CANoe considering different network busloads and CAN/CAN-FD rates between 1 to 4 Mbps. Results show that the mechanism efficiently detects anomalous events on performance with short response time with busloads up to 30%. The performed experiments show better performance on CAN-FD registering lower average jitter during fault injection in all busloads tested scenarios.

─Smart City is one area of application for the Internet of Things (IoT) and it has been attracting attention from both academia and industry. Cities will be composed by autonomous parts that communicate and provide services to each other. For instance, cars (autonomous or not) may be seen as a service that transports people from one point to another. Interactions between users and these kinds of services will grow, making it necessary to have digitization of all these parts of the Smart City. The Digital Twin (DT) concept proposes that real-world assets have a virtual representation connecting the physical world with the cyber world. This allows to track the whole life-cycle of this object as well as perform simulations with current or previously stored data. In this context, this work proposes the use of Digital Twin for enabling and supporting car-as-a-service (CaaS). A case study has been developed to demonstrate the modeling and the deployment of the Digital Twin, highlighting how this concept can be one of the key enablers for CaaS.

The digital twin (DT) is a virtual representation of a physical object, which has been proposed as one of the key concepts for Industry 4.0. The DT provides a virtual representation of products along their lifecycle that enables the prediction and optimization of the behavior of a production system and its components. A methodology design using model-driven engineering (MDE) is proposed that strives toward being both flexible and generic. This approach is presented at two levels: first, a DT is modeled as a composition of basic components that provide basic functionalities, such as identification, storage, communication, security, data management, human-machine interface (HMI), and simulation; second, an aggregated DT is defined as a hierarchical composition of other DTs. A generic reference architecture based on these concepts and a concrete implementation methodology are proposed using AutomationML. This methodology follows an MDE approach that supports most of the DT features currently proposed in the literature. A case study has been developed, the proposed ideas are being evaluated with industrial case studies, and some of the preliminary results are described in this article. With the case study, it is possible to verify that the proposed methodology supports the creation and the deployment process of a DT.

This paper presents an approach to monitor the performance degradation in CAN networks and the fault effect on time constraints of periodic control tasks. The work proposes the use of a test-based method supported by fault and error injection that helps the engineer to define how these faults degrade the system performance. In addition, a runtime jitter monitoring technique is proposed and applied to a CAN-based vehicular network. The runtime jitter analyses the performance oscillation according to a time window and with a tolerance range defined during previous performance tests. A case study was conducted monitoring a critical control system during error injection and the analysis technique was applied in order to verify the performance oscillation detection. Results show that with a typical CAN rate of 1 Mbps, the runtime jitter detect anomalies in performance during a short time period up to 30% of busload. The experiments show the degradation of 4,2 times on average jitter between 10% and 30% of busload with fault injection. The detection is also possible with higher busload 50% and 80%, but with an increase in the detection time. The present study emphasizes the importance of performance monitoring with the recent advances in automotive electronics.

Industrial wireless sensor networks usually have a centralized management approach, where a device known as network manager is responsible for the overall configuration, definition of routes, and allocation of communication resources. Graph routing is used to increase the reliability of communication through path redundancy. Some of the state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithms use weighted cost equations to define preferences on how the routes are constructed. The characteristics and requirements of these networks complicate to find a proper set of weight values to enhance network performance. Reinforcement learning can be useful to adjust these weights according to the current operating conditions of the network. In this article, we present the Q-learning reliable routing with a weighting agent approach, where an agent adjusts the weights of a state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithm. The states of the agent represent sets of weights, and the actions change the weights during network operation. Rewards are given to the agent when the average network latency decreases or the expected network lifetime increases. Simulations were conducted on a WirelessHART simulator considering industrial monitoring applications with random topologies. Results show, in most cases, a reduction of the average network latency while the expected network lifetime and the communication reliability are at least as good as what is obtained by the state-of-the-art graph-routing algorithms.

When developing Real-Time and Embedded Systems (RTES), different types of constraints should be considered in specification, modeling, architectural design and system implementation. In most cases, these constraints describe timing, precedence or resource restriction. Correct description and evaluation of these complex information along of RTES design are directly related to their reliability, safety and quality. In this research, a methodology to describe real-time and embedded information in requirements, functional, logical and technical viewpoints is briefly presented, as well as an approach to analyze the annotated constraints. MARTE constraints have been consistently applied in designing models and implemented at lower abstraction models. Here, pseudo automated generation of timing, precedence and resources constraints is performed from the graphical models to the final source code models. Therefore, the proposed approach has a great value to RTES design once it has traced constraints along of the architectural design and it also presents a manner to check if constraints are being reached in accordance with early design description.

Architectural design of Real-Time and Embedded Systems must describe the system components (software and hardware) in a common and comprehensible manner to be understandable to several stakeholders involved in the development process. This article explores the combined adoption of a well-recognized methodology to activities of architectural system design, with the MARTE profile, considering non-functional annotations in model elements. The proposed approach aims to define a general and appropriate architectural viewpoint to the real-time and embedded domain. MARTE profile and SPES methodology are employed in modeling strategies in order to explore the requirements, services and systems components. In this paper, a case study in the automotive system domain is performed and the architectural viewpoints are able to represent functional and non-functional requirements, performance and temporal restrictions in the field of automotive systems at different levels of detail and abstraction.

Development of Real-Time and Embedded Systems (RTES) involves a number of complex activities performed by a diversity of stakeholders. In most cases, RTES requires a number of different physical and logical components with numerous functional and non-functional constraints. Therefore, it is essential to ensure the representation, specification and analysis of quality activities of these systems since the early design activities. SPES (Software Platform Embedded Systems) methodology has been considered to describe a framework to develop RTES, but it does not specify directly how and which modeling languages should be adopted. Thus, this research adopts SPES guidelines and applies SysML and MARTE profiles to create models in the architectural viewpoints, while it highlights functional properties and different non-functional constraints of the system. A formalization of design viewpoints is presented in order to contribute to quantitative measurement to describe an analysis of the design complexity since the initial design activities. As contributions of this paper, it can be highlighted a proposal to formalize the RTES design activities (viewpoints), a measurement of the system design complexity since the initial design activities (in accordance with the design activities) and, also, the definition of a formalized manner to analyse RTES complexity without the interference of user external knowledge.

Real-time and embedded systems (RTES) encompass a variety of embedded and real-time properties and requirements which defines them. Timing behavior of RTES physical and logical subsystems is as important as their functional behavior. These systems must define, in addition to their functional properties, the control of several peripheral components, of their constraints, communication interfaces and temporal and non-functional requirements. Understanding the representation and treatment of several properties of real-time and embedded systems has direct influence in their development, reliability and safety. Therefore, it is pertinent to analyze the properties that represent this domain and to provide strategies for a complete definition of model elements'. This paper aims to provide guidelines for comprehension, application and possible adoption of the UML MARTE (Modelling and Analysis of RealTime and Embedded Systems) profile in specification, modeling and design of real-time and embedded properties of a system. The proposed design strategy is applied to a case study, in the domain of intelligent automation systems, in order to direct the adoption of the constructors of MARTE profile in other development contexts and to describe the semantics and syntax of these builders to strengthen their comprehensibility.

Faults in industrial communication protocols represent an important problem for industrial systems as they may lead to severe losses. Observing the need for approaches to deal with this type of problem, this paper studies reliability aspects related to industrial communication protocols and the modeling of possible communication faults. The work proposes a requirements specification based on aspect-oriented concepts to map and model common faults in design phases of embedded systems. A model integrating fault modeling in communication protocols extending the Real-Time From Requirements to Design using Aspects (RT-FRIDA) framework is presented. A case study on vehicular networks was conducted considering the nonfunctional requirements specification of an Active Suspension System. Then, a sequence of fault requirements based in recent studies is modeled and presented to validate the proposed approach. The main contribution of this work is to enable the use of fault modeling in communication protocols and aspect-oriented modeling techniques to mitigate the fault impact in the timing behavior of critical tasks. This study indicates the use of observers' technique modeled to fault diagnosis, so that they can be aggregated into a real-time control system.

The Internet of Things concept is increasingly being used in projects from different areas. Often, projects encompass applications from different domains that need to share information for a common purpose. These types of systems can become complex because they involve different domains and it can be difficult to share information without misinterpreting certain information. Ontologies can be a way to describe information to be shared between different domains. The present work aims to propose a tool that facilitates the creation of Internet of Things systems using ontologies and through this model generate code automatically to pre-automate the integration of devices. A tool has been developed that facilitates the extraction of information from the ontology and it has been validated in the case study.

The papers in this special section introduce various new works in the area of semantic technologies in industrial informatics. They address common problems in the state of the art and illustrate the benefit of semantic technologies to automation in many practical scenarios.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are often composed of a wide range of sensor nodes, which may vary greatly in their type of hardware platform, as well as their sensing and mobility capabilities. The ability of a sensor to move is a particularly important feature in dynamic scenarios, since mobile sensors can fill the gap caused by the failures of those that are stationary, and thus extend the lifetime and span of a WSN. However, there remains the problems of intersensory communication in the field when integrating mobile sensors into the Sensor Web in dynamic scenarios since it does not have the necessary interoperability for automatically managing the different types of sensor data and activities involved in such scenarios. This paper tackles this problem by adopting an approach consisting of an enhanced messaging protocol and a dynamic sensor management component. In validating the proposal, two different realistic scenarios were simulated to evaluate the achieved results in terms of interoperability and performance. The results provided evidence that the proposal complies with Sensor Web standards as well as being suitable for near real-time data publication, and is thus able to support applications in dynamic scenarios.

Industrial wireless sensor networks make use of batteries to provide mobility and low maintenance. The available energy depends of battery specification, electrical characteristics of the device, communication protocol and process variable update rate. The development of industrial field devices and communication protocols demands solutions to verify the expended energy along the time which can be used to predict battery life and to provide a balanced network for messages routing. In this work, an energy measurement circuit is developed for TDMA-based industrial wireless field devices such as WirelessHART and ISA SP100.11 and it is used as a reference to correct an embedded energy estimation algorithm. The overall idea is to certify the algorithm embedded by the electronic measurement, further substituted by simple functions that calculate the expended energy. The results presented a 2.5% in most cases and 3.5% worst case errors by the estimation algorithm when compared to the reference circuit, used for measuring the total energy of the sensor node during a predefined communication period.

As the number of network connected devices in an industrial system increases, the management and handling of all the information generated become a challenge. In this work we explore concepts of Cyber-Physical System model the virtual part of industrial devices (sensor, machines, CLPs) using the Digital Twin concept and propose an architecture based on web services for accessing their data. We present a case study where an Augmented Reality system access the Twin Model data via web services and display real-time information to the user. Moreover, we present a review of how the involved concepts, which have a strong computational background, relate to industrial applications and how they can expand the possibility of services and business models.

An Intelligent Maintenance System (IMS) provides data about the status of technical devices. Based on sensorial input, IMS analyzes the data and forecasts failures of these devices. The forecasted failures can be used to improve the spare parts demand forecast results as the gathered condition monitoring information provides a more accurate prognosis about the status of the technical devices. The enhanced demand forecasts in the next step build the foundation for planning the activities like inventory, transport, and maintenance management planning along a spare parts supply chain more adequately. To use the data provided by an IMS for forecasting the spare parts demand, the IMS data has to be analyzed and processed as the current existing IMS does not generate condition monitoring information in the data type, which is needed for enhancing the spare parts demand forecast. For that reason, this paper proposes how the IMS can be adapted for generating the needed data type. This is done by developing an IMS simulator based on the same IMS architecture used in the field. An IMS simulator is developed as in real scenarios restrictions are existing concerning the data collection by the installed IMS in the field.

Nowadays the electricity generation is a commonly discussed subject. A large number of studies about converting mechanical energy into electrical energy are done. However, there is also the need for studying new internal combustion engines so the chemical energy can be more efficiently converted into mechanical energy or movement. This article describes the development of an electronic management system for an embedded control and management of a new concept spark ignition rotary engine prototype for a promising use in electrical energy generation. The embedded software creating will be explained since its project thru its implementation. Several aspects of implementation will be discussed, from the hardware, like choosing the microcontroller between PIC18F4550 to Arduino Uno, Mega 2560 and Due, to discussing deep aspects of the embedded software programming code. At the end, results of how the system operated will be presented and discussed.

The growth in the use of wireless sensor networks has made possible the development of improvements that meet the needs of the communication industry, including several devices with to low cost, low power consumption, mobility and ease of integration, installation and configuration advantages. Not only that but they also create additional functionalities, such as showing the location of field engineers who are active in industrial environments. The WirelessHART protocol is an open standard for wireless communication that seeks to meet these qualities. This study presents a development of an application for the localization of a mobile device via the WirelessHART network. Different methods are analyzed to estimate the distance between the mobile node and the other fixed elements of the wireless sensor network, such as deployment topologies and algorithms, which are used to compute the data and determine the location in a coordinate plane. The operation of the proposed system and the location method were evaluated by means of simulations and practical tests. Due to the conditions used for the installation of the devices, it was possible to obtain a range of radio transmission over 100 m, which allowed to determine an area of monitoring system of about 100 m × 100 m. The results obtained from the error location reached between a 72% and 80% of the estimated localization that was less than 5 meters.

This study intends to consider the operator skill and the environment conditions as variables of Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS). In this sense maintenance operations associated with the technical skills and environment factors through sensory perception can represent important strategy to improve the IMS. This approach considers the Cyber-Physical Systems (or CPS) paradigm to acquire human and context factors once that CPS system combines coordinates physical and computational elements. Thus this study proposes the CPS use for taking account the operator's skill and environment conditions for maintenance strategies. This proposal aims the developing of Advanced Human Computer Interface for Intelligent Maintenance Systems that consider the operator's skill and environment. The validation will be accomplished by interface named Toogle where two case studies will be tested.

This paper describes the implementation of a supervisory framework for monitoring and verification of energy resources compatible with a standardized energy management system, including energy use and consumption requirements, as well as documentation, communication, best practices of project, equipment procurement, systems, processes and human resources involved in energy performance. The strategy of energy use analysis proposed in this work is based on the methodology of monitoring and targeting that consists of a systematic approach in the use of energy resources in order to achieve the best economic result through the permanent management of energy consumption. In addition, it was proposed the inclusion of this methodology as a procedure in the planning phase of ISO50001 standard, which establishes the concepts for implementation of energy management systems. In order to integrate the tools associated with this scenario, this platform includes the use of a supervisory system associated with an software (Soft-PLC) that executes the control application of energy use in an industrial environment with distributed automation compatible with IEC61131 standard. The results arising from the adoption of an automation based platform to energy management include high flexibility, adaptability and usability of the system. Furthermore, an automation project in this scenario of open platform tends to introduce lower development and deployment costs.

The use of Modbus protocol for industrial control and monitoring applications over multipoint RS-485 networks may be constrained by several factors, as the number of messages exchanged over the network and their respective bandwidth usage. Some applications need an evaluation of the response times of a set of messages to ensure that the set is schedulable, according to the application requirements, as message periods, deadlines and scheduling policy. In this paper, we discuss a tool for response time and schedulability analysis for Modbus communications over RS-485 networks. Response times of a message set are collected by a specialized Modbus device and then sent to software where analysis is done. A Modbus application over a RS-485 network was deployed in a laboratory environment for evaluation using the developed tool.

The design and evolution of today's embedded systems face an increasing complexity both in the applications and in the platforms that support them. The use of complex platforms means that the engineers need to make non-trivial decisions during the design phase including optimized allocation, binding and scheduling. This situation creates a need for better ways to manage project complexity, and Model Driven Engineering is a possible solution. In this work, we propose an extension of a Model Driven Engineering methodology (i.e. HIPAO) to help manage complexity, which includes an automated Design Space Exploration phase that uses Genetic Algorithms to find the best hardware/software partitioning for a given application. We apply the HIPAO methodology to a case study of an autonomous industrial inspection system.

The use of wireless networks in industrial environment is growing due to the advantages of these networks compared to wired systems. The WirelessHART protocol was created in 2007, and it's the first open wireless communication standard specifically designed for industrial environments. This protocol has been gaining increasing applicability in industry due to its high reliability and robustness. Because it is a recent protocol, there are still many ongoing researches. One of them is related to tools for analyzing and monitoring the network. Such tools have the main objective to capture the messages that travel on the network, acting as a sniffer. However, the WirelessHART protocol has some peculiarities as compared to other wireless networks, such as the use of 15 different channels. Because of this, many sniffers already proposed for wireless networks can not be applied, because its capture data on only one frequency. This paper proposes a new tool, which has advantages such as: data capture in 15 channels using only one radio receiver, local storage of captured data using a memory card and measuring the energy in the channels for getting information about interference in the network. In addition, an offline application presents statistics and analysis about the captured data. The results show that the tool is working properly as a sniffer and it's performing the interference detection in the network. A case study shows the behavior of the WirelessHART network coexisting with IEEE 802.11 standard.

Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS) are data acquisition/analysis systems for predictive maintenance. The IMS provide autonomously (or semi-autonomously) diagnoses, prognostics and health assessment of components. In these systems, factors such as data acquisition and visualization from equipments are very important. In this context, this study has used a Cyber-Physical Systems (or CPS) approach to consider the various aspects present into a maintenance environment. The CPS is a new paradigm that seeks to combine and coordinate physical and computational elements. In this paper, we propose a 2D/3D visualization tool for cyber-physical maintenance environments. This tool works under HTTP protocol and makes possible the real-time visualization and remotely access, allowing users to view, to edit and to access the maintenance data via web browser.

The adoption of dense industrial wireless network technologies in industrial plants is mandatorily paired with the development of methods and tools for connectivity prediction. These can be used to certify the quality (or reliability) of network information flow in industrial scenarios characterized by harsh propagation environments. Connectivity prediction must account for possibly coexisting heterogeneous radio access technologies as part of the internet of things (IoT) paradigm and easily allow post layout validation steps. The goal of the paper is to provide a practical evaluation of relevant coexistence problems between IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.11 networks, adopted here as widely used industry standards. Two different scenarios are tested with different radio platforms. Experimental results highlight the tolerable interference levels and sensitivity thresholds under different channel overlapping scenarios.

Wireless sensor networks have been expanding rapidly in many applications for different areas such as residential, office and industrial. Wireless connections bring many advantages as installation feasibility, scalability, mobility and reduce infrastructure costs. However, wireless network performance is affected by many factors as, for example, environment characteristics and other wireless communication technologies at the same coverage area. The wireless communication resources are limited and many times shared, allowing interferences from different kind of electromagnetic sources. This work presents a thesis proposal for the investigation and development of adaptive methods for an industrial wireless network, the WirelessHART protocol. Through dynamic mechanism for spectrum sensing, channel selection and power control between devices communication is intended to increase the robustness and performance of the protocol.

Artificial Immune Intelligent Maintenance System (AI2MS) is a proposal for a distributed condition-based maintenance system that applies the concepts of Artificial Immune Systems. This work presents the design of a multi agent system to support the development of the Device Layer Agents, the AI2MS first level. Agents modeling and implementation of the agents are presented, with focus on communication strategies. An ontology is also proposed to represent concepts and relations within the system.

Due to increasing complexity, the design of Industrial Automation Systems are becoming more challenging. In that sense, efforts have been driven to develop Model-Based Systems Engineering tools and methods. Despite recent progress, there are still doubts in terms of the practical use and benefits. The main concerns are related to integration among tools and exchange of information between multidisciplinary artifacts. This paper compares Document-Centric Engineering (CAx tools) and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) in light of Industrial Automation Systems using a real domain. Therefore, a MBSE compliant method was developed and tested. Commercial tools such as the Eclipse platform and the ModelicaML language were used to perform abstract modeling while COMOS® from Siemens® was used to develop the multidisciplinary artifacts for project documentation. A Java application was developed to integrate component information between the selected environments. The OpenModelica Compiler was integrated to the platform to allow system and component behavior simulation. Tests have shown that the tools involved on this investigation still need further development concerning maturity and exchange of information from abstract models down to domain specific models. On the other hand, MBSE has proven to be an important tool to match different team approaches and concerns, improving team communication using conceptual-wide and abstract symbols. Connecting abstract ModelicaML models to a simulation environment using Modelica led to a better understanding of systems behavior prior to realization and provided an analysis environment for early detection of project errors and operational failures.

The WirelessHART protocol was designed from scratch specifically for industrial applications, allowing secure, reliable, and real time communications in harsh environments. Its centralized management produces all the communication scheduling and routing, which in turns allows low power and low cost field devices, adequate for slow and static networks. This is typically the case of process control applications. However, the slow dynamics of this protocol avoids the usage of mobile or intermittent devices, such as robots and portable devices for plant coordination or inspection. This paper introduces a special field device that has a network coprocessor incorporated. The coprocessor is able to locally manage network events and, together with a modified field device that can act as an access point, it has the ability to cope with intermittent network events. The device development is described as well as a case study whose results are presented at the end.

High-speed scientific cameras have been demanding more from their control systems as the number of pixels, and number of frame increases and therefore the required total bandwidth. One way to cope with this demand is to perform realtime image processing. The challenge on that is the fact that each experiment requires a different processing algorithms and one needs to reconfigure it frequently. An example of this system is the LBNL high-speed cameras based on FPGAs used on X-rays and electron microscopy experiments. These camera systems can benefit from modern design methodologies that explore higher abstraction level modeling, which includes both functional and non-functional requirements specification and that take advantage of techniques such as object-oriented and aspect-oriented methodologies. This paper introduces HIPAO, a Hardware Image Processing system based on model driven engineering and Aspect-Oriented modeling. Some examples are shown for each step of the methodology that goes from requirements modeling to automatic code generation.

Currently, computers can be composed of different Processing Units (PUs) - general-purpose and also programmable and specialist-purpose. One of the goals for such heterogeneity is to improve applications' performance. Particularly, scientific applications can highly benefit from this kind of platform. They produce large amounts of data within several types of algorithms, and distinct PUs are an alternative to better execute such tasks. This work presents a new system box - composed of CPU, GPU, and FPGA - to carry on site X-ray image evaluations. It was firstly tested by evaluating the performance of a Linear Integration (LI) algorithm over the PUs. This algorithm is largely used by synchrotron experiments in which high-speed X-ray cameras produce extremely large amounts of data for post-processing analysis, which includes performing LI. In our experiments, LI execution was around 30x faster in FPGA compared to CPU, achieving a similar performance to GPU. Taking the end-to-end application, i.e., image transfer into memory, this rate increases to hundreds. Issues for using FPGAs as a co-processor under our dynamic scheduling framework is also discussed. Synthesizing times for LI when assigned to FPGA are still too long for dynamic scheduling, preventing online synthesizing of functions not designed a priori.

Automation and control systems include many “intelligent” automation devices, which are usually implemented as complex embedded systems. New methods and tools are demanded to cope with the increasing design complexity, while keeping the project on schedule. Proper handling of nonfunctional system requirements is a key factor during the design of industrial automation systems, since in some application domains they are as important as (sometimes, more important than) functional requirements. This paper presents a model-driven engineering approach, which combines Unified Modeling Language (UML) and aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) to design real-time and embedded automation systems. The proposed approach allows a smooth transition from the initial phases to implementation by using software tools, comprising the system specification and the automatic generation of source code. By combining UML with model-level aspects and a script-base code generation tool, it enables the use of AOSD during system design and implementation, even though the target platform does not natively support such concepts. Experimental results on using this approach to design real-world examples of automation systems are presented. The results indicate a positive impact on the design of automation systems. The encapsulation of nonfunctional requirements was improved, increasing the reuse of developed artifacts. Generated source code statistics indicate that the proposed approach can generated a fair amount of code per model element.

The price and size reduction of computational devices have increased the number of areas where human-operated equipments are replaced by autonomous and autoconfigurable devices. The IP protocol has taken place in industrial and home automation, specially in wireless applications. It allows applications to use interoperable communication strategies commonly used in the computer networks as the Web Services. Since the standard Web Services are too heavy to be directly used in devices, the DPWS (Device Profile for Web Services) has been created, reducing the resources needed by services. The DPWS specification suggest WS-Security to implement secure communication between devices and their clients. It is a problem considering that WS-Security not fit in current devices applications, because it uses assimetric cryptography for all communication steps. This work evaluates the use of DPWS over a TLS/SSL cryptography layer using compression techniques to reduce the impact of security layer implementation.

Recent evolutions of social networks, virtual environments, Web technologies and 3D virtual worlds motivate the adoption of new technologies in education, opening successive innovative possibilities. These technologies (or tools) can be employed in distance education scenarios, or can also enhance traditional learning-teaching (blended or hybrid learning scenario). It is known and a wide advocated issue that laboratory practice is essential to technical education, foremost in engineering. In order to develop a feasible implementation to this research area, a prototype was developed, called 3DAutoSysLab, in which a metaverse is used as social collaborative interface, experiments (real or simulated) are linked to virtual objects, learning objects are displayed as interactive medias, and guiding/feedback are supported via an autonomous tutoring system based on user's interaction data mining. This prototype is under test, but preliminary applied results indicate great acceptance and increase of motivation of students.

A personal computer can be considered as a one-node heterogeneous cluster that simultaneously processes several application tasks. It can be composed by, for example, asymmetric CPU and GPUs. This way, a high-performance heterogeneous platform is built on a desktop for data intensive engineering calculations. In our perspective, a workload distribution over the Processing Units (PUs) plays a key role in such systems. This issue presents challenges since the cost of a task at a PU is non-deterministic and can be affected by parameters not known a priori. This paper presents a context-aware runtime and tuning system based on a compromise between reducing the execution time of engineering applications - due to appropriate dynamic scheduling - and the cost of computing such scheduling applied on a platform composed of CPU and GPUs. Results obtained in experimental case studies are encouraging and a performance gain of 21.77% was achieved in comparison to the static assignment of all tasks to the GPU.

The emerging applications using sensor network technologies constitute a new trend requiring several different devices to work together and partly autonomously. However, the integration and coordination of heterogeneous sensors in these emerging systems is still a challenge, especially when the target application scenario is susceptible to constant changes. The setup and adaptation of these systems are challenging, considering that their nodes are distributed and must respect operational constraints, such as energy consumption. Due to the dynamicity of the scenarios in which they are deployed and the nature of their operations these systems require autonomous decisions that have to be taken without any human operator intervention. This paper presents a reflective middleware that supports heterogeneous sensor networks deployed in dynamic scenarios. This middleware presents specific handling of users’ requirements by representing them as missions that must be accomplished by the network. These missions are then translated to network parameters and activities that are distributed to network nodes by means of the autonomous reasoning that takes into account network nodes’ capabilities and environment conditions. A multi-agent framework is proposed to provide the necessary support for missions’ dissemination and for the required reasoning to allow autonomous behaviour related to mission allocation and network adaptation.

This paper presents simulation results of a setup strategy for wireless sensor networks, based on an agent-oriented middleware. A great problem that has to be tackled in sensor networks is how to setup them to provide the data required from the user with a minimal overhead. Having this goal in mind, the proposed approach abstracts the network setup as missions, which are handled within the network by intelligent agents that disseminate and divide the work related to the missions. Several experiments using this approach are provided, showing its efficiency and the low overhead that it imposes to the network.

GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) have become one of the main co-processors that contributed to desktops towards high performance computing. Together with multi-core CPUs, a powerful heterogeneous execution platform is built for massive calculations. To improve application performance and explore this heterogeneity, a distribution of workload in a balanced way over the PUs (Processing Units) plays an important role for the system. However, this problem faces challenges since the cost of a task at a PU is non-deterministic and can be influenced by several parameters not known a priori, like the problem size domain. We present a comparison of iterative SLE (Systems of Linear Equations) solvers, used in many scientific and engineering applications, over a heterogeneous CPU-GPUs platform and characterize scenarios where the solvers obtain better performances. A new technique to improve memory access on matrix-vector multiplication used by SLEs on GPUs is described and compared to standard implementations for CPU and GPUs. Such timing profiling is analyzed and break-even points based on the problem sizes are identified for this implementation, pointing whether our technique is faster to use GPU instead of CPU. Preliminary results show the importance of this study applied to a real-time CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) application with geometry modification.

This paper presents a comparison among different strategies to coordinate the use of heterogeneous wireless sensors aimed for area surveillance. The heterogeneity among the sensor nodes is related to their sensing and mobility capabilities. The goal of the strategies is to provide coordination among the different nodes, in order to make the wireless sensor network perform its missions with higher efficiency. Strategies combine advantages of bio-inspired and utility-based approaches to coordination. Simulations of scenarios with different characteristics were performed and the results are compared and analyzed.

The partitioning of applications into hardware and software is an important issue in embedded systems, opening room for high level specifications as well as the exploration of different implementation strategies. This paper presents a software architecture to specify threads in hardware in the context of the real time specification for Java (RTSJ) standard. There is a Java class that encapsulates hardware components, providing an abstraction layer to the application developer. Below this Java class, a wrapper hardware component provides a standard interface between RTSJ-based software components and the hardware that implements the thread behavior. This approach provides a high flexibility in choosing either a hardware or software implementation, allowing to postpone hardware/software partitioning to the very end of system development. The paper includes some quantitative data from an example containing hardware and software threads. While both implementations are compatible with the rest of the application from an interface point- of-view, they lead to very different timing and area results.

Model-driven design (MDD) can be perceived in the recent literature as an option to deal with the increasing complexity of the design of distributed embedded real-time systems (DERTS). This paper reports some results of a research project aiming to support a MDD approach, which applies concepts of the aspect-oriented (AO) paradigm in order to improve the treatment of non-functional requirements (NFR) in the design of DERTS. A tool named GenERTiCA, which generates source code from UML diagrams and also weaves aspect adaptations, has been developed to support such MDD/AO approach. This paper presents results regarding the use of GenERTiCA to generate code and implement aspects (from a high-level framework of aspect) for the RT-FemtoJava platform, a RTSJ-based and optimized Java platform for DERTS.

Many modern applications require high-performance platforms to deal with a variety of algorithms requiring massive calculations. Moreover, low-cost powerful hardware (e.g., GPU, PPU) and CPUs with multiple cores have become abundant, and can be combined in heterogeneous architectures. To cope with this, reconfigurable computing is a potential paradigm as it can provide flexibility to explore the computational resources on hybrid and multi-core desktop architectures. The workload can optimally be (re)distributed over heterogeneous cores along the lifecycle of an application, aiming for best performance. As the first step towards a run-time reconfigurable load-balancing framework, application requirements and crosscutting concerns related to timing play an important role for task allocation decisions. In this paper, we present the use of aspect-oriented paradigms to address non-functional application timing constraints in the design phase. The DERAF aspectspsila framework is extended to support reconfiguration requirements; and a strategy for load-balancing is described. In addition, we present preliminary evaluation using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based surveillance system as case study.

Sensor networks are being applied in several emerging sophisticated applications due to the use of powerful and high-quality sensor nodes, such as radars and visible light cameras. However, these nodes need additional features to optimally benefit from heterogeneous modern computing platforms. Therefore, reconfigurable computing is a potential paradigm for those scenarios as it can provide flexibility to explore the computational resources on that kind of high performance computing system. This paper presents a reconfigurable sensor node allocation support, based on application requirements, provided by a middleware focused on heterogeneous sensor networks. In order to address this concern, an aspect-orientation paradigm and intelligent agents approach is proposed followed by an UAV case study.

This work presents a proposal to use aspect orientation in the analysis and design of distributed embedded real-time systems (DERTS). These systems have several requirements directly related to their main characteristics, the so-called non-functional requirements (NFR), which refer to orthogonal properties, conditions, and restrictions that are spread out over the entire system. Pure object-oriented methods do not address successfully those so called cross-cutting concerns, so new technologies, like aspect orientation, are applied in order to fulfill this gap. The paper presents DERAFistributed embedded real-time aspects framework, an extensible and high-level framework (i.e. implementation-independent) to handle NFR of DERTS at earlier design stages. DERAF combines the use of aspects with RT-UML, aiming to separate the handling of non-functional from functional requirements in the model driven design of DERTS. The paper presents the use of DERAF on a case study of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV)

The object-oriented paradigm has become popular over the last years due to its characteristics that help managing the complexity in computer systems design. This feature also attracted the embedded systems community, as today's embedded systems need to cope with several complex functionalities as well as timing, power, and area restrictions. Such scenario has promoted the use of the Java language and its real-time extension (RTSJ) for embedded real-time systems design. Nevertheless, the RTSJ was not primarily designed to be used within the embedded domain. This paper presents an approach to optimize the use of the RTSJ for the development of embedded real-time systems. Firstly, it describes how to design real-time embedded applications using an API based on RTSJ. Secondly, it shows how the generated code is optimized to cope with the tight resources available, without interfering in the mandatory timing predictability of the generated system. Finally it discusses an approach to synthesize the applications on top of affordable FPGAs. The approach used to synthesize the embedded real-time system ensures a bounded timing behavior of the object-oriented aspects of the application, like the polymorphism mechanism and read/write access to object's data fields

This paper presents an object-oriented framework for building supervisory systems to run on mobile devices such as PDAs, cell phones and pocket PCs. The most distinguished features of the proposed architecture are: (i) supervisory systems are built based on object-oriented models with problem domain concepts, promoting reuse and better system engineering; (ii) proposed run-time environment is flexible in the sense that can dynamically adapt its graphical interface depending on the capabilities of the underlying hardware; (iii) adaptive behavior implementing a graceful degradation schema to cope with variations in the quality of services provided by the communication environment. The objects orientation paradigm and its known advantages for computational systems molding that involve real physic system models, as the industrial designs to be represented for the supervisory systems, is an interesting way for the molding of the supervisory systems. Aspects as the reuse of components, incapsulement of functions and attributes in a same abstraction, supported by methods oriented to objects, are great attractions for the use of this paradigm. The paper presents a case study in order to facilitate the framework comprehension.

This paper presents the evaluation of a multithread distributed real-time object-oriented platform. A communication API was developed to increase functionalities of an API that implements the real-time specification for Java standard, extending it to cover embedded distributed applications. Real-time restrictions of the communication are ensured by a time-out mechanism. The API can be adapted to be used with different underlying network and physical mediums. The development focused on restrictive embedded platforms with low performance and small memory. An evaluation in terms of the fulfillment of timing constraints, and memory footprint is presented for a CAN-bus network. The results also demonstrate the timely correctness provided by the communication API running over an RTSJ implementation

This paper present a comparison between three different high-level modeling approaches for embedded systems design, focusing on systems that require dataflow models. The proposed evaluation investigates the facilities provided by these approaches for expressing systems requirements, functional specification, and timing constraints. Properties like model readability, testability, and implementability are also considered. Moreover, the support to different Models of Computation is also evaluated. A Crane Control System is used as case study to apply the proposed comparison criteria.

This paper presents the TinyCAN, a resource constrained controller area network controller implemented in VHDL language. The core description is fully synthesizable and fits in a FPGA-based platform occupying a maximum of 366 look-up tables. An enhanced error control strategy was elaborated with the aim of producing a more suitable behavior for safety-critical applications. For all that, compatibility with off-the-shelf components was preserved implementation details and comments on design decisions are given. The paper also presents some guidelines for the use of the proposed CAN controller IP for time-triggered architectures.

The embedded real-time development community is investigating different approaches in order to provide modularity and reuse features for system design in this area, as well as a more appropriate mapping technique between requirements and implementation. The Java technology is very promising for this community, mainly after the research efforts on its real-time extension RTSJ-real-time specification for Java. However, there are still some critic factors related to the adoption of Java for real-time applications, and some of them deserve special attention. This paper reports a study of some of these decisive factors, such as the choice of the underlying operating system, the use of a middleware (virtual machine) or a native code, and the use of the Java real-time API (RTSJ).

The growing complexity of today's embedded real-time systems demands new methods and tools in order to manage the problems of design, analysis, integration and validation of complex systems. This paper describes an object-oriented platform-based design process for real-time embedded systems. The proposed approach promotes a smooth transition from high-level UML specification to implementation, which is composed by hardware and software components. The transition from higher to lower abstraction levels is facilitated by the use of an OO realtime API, whose underlying facilities can be optimized according to the application needs and selected platform. An integrated toolset is used to support the intermediate steps of the design process. In order to illustrate the proposed approach and related toolset the design of an embedded real-time automation system for an "intelligent" wheelchair is presented.

The recent standard for the real-time unified modeling language (RT-UML) addresses the specification of real-time requirements and time using extended UML diagrams. It has a great potential to impulse the use of object orientation and UML in the development of real-time applications. This work evaluates the suitability of the RT-UML profile for modeling distributed real-time systems. The paper includes both a theoretical assessment of the proposed modeling concepts as well as it includes a case study, which is used to highlight the benefits and drawbacks from the adopted specifications.

This paper presents BR-Tool, a multi-protocol bus monitoring and temporal validation software developed to provide temporal validation of fieldbus-based automation applications. BR-Tool monitors communication on industrial networks during real operation and compares acquired data with temporal requirements previously specified. Two industrial case studies are presented in this paper: the first one is a PROFIBUS-DP based manufacturing system, and the second one deals with a energy control system application based on CANOpen protocol.

Distributed factory automation systems benefit from field-busses which, in general, provide support for reliable and timely communication. These field-buses, however, provide rather low level communication objects and their features regarding quality aspects of communication are difficult to access and use for applications. The paper presents COSMIC (cooperating smart devices), a middleware architecture which allows the use of communication abstraction for high level applications based on distributed cooperating objects. The middleware supports an event-based communication model which enables spontaneous dissemination of events, maintains control autonomy of objects and allows to specify different real-time and reliability requirements on the application level. The basic abstractions presented at the middleware layer are events and event channels. As an example, the paper describes how these abstractions are mapped to CAN-Bus which constitutes a widely used field-bus standard.

Object-oriented techniques have been increasingly used during the development of real-time industrial automation systems, both in modeling and simulation frameworks used in problem domain analysis and requirements engineering, as well as for implementing SCADA (Supervisor.), Control And Data Acquisition) systems. However, mostly commercial available CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools do not supports the automatic code generation for SCADA systems. This paper proposes an architecture for integrating supervisory tools into object-oriented frameworks for industrial automation applications. The ideas proposed have been implemented and integrated with an object-oriented framework for real-time industrial automation applications. Real case studies have been developed, including the supervisory control of a chemical plant's prototype and the development of man-machine interfaces for food industry (pork processing plant).

Presents SIMOO-RT, an object-oriented framework designed to support the whole development cycle of real-time industrial automation systems. It is based on the concept of distributed active objects, which are autonomous execution entities that have their own thread of control, and that interact with each other by means of remote methods invocation. SIMOO-RT covers most of the development phases, from requirements engineering to implementation. It starts with the construction of an object model of the technical plant to be automated, on which user and problem-domain requirements are captured. Here, emphasis on modeling timing constraints is given. The technical details involved in the process of mapping problem-domain objects to design specific entities as well as the automatic code generation for the runtime application are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, details are given on how to monitor the runtime applications and to evaluate its timing restrictions.

Often, the advantages attainable by object oriented programming cannot be realised due to the widespread use of inadequate languages in the domain of real time and distributed systems. In order to meet the needs of these areas to an unmatched extent, the article advocates the use of PEARL as base language, and its extension PEARL* for object oriented software development. The paper mainly focuses on supporting software engineering for safety related embedded systems. To this end, appropriate subsets of PEARL and PEARL* are defined, meeting the requirements of the Safety Integrity Levels 1, 2 and 3, respectively. It is possible to combine code associated with different Safety Integrity Levels in a transparent way, assuming that the ethical parts respect some safety rules, but allowing other uncritical parts of a system to be implemented in more comfortable ways.

This paper compares interaction and communication mechanisms used in distributed control systems, focusing on object-oriented and component-based development. The standard communication model used in distributed object oriented systems is remote method invocation. We argue that this client/server oriented model has some severe drawbacks when used in a control system where objects may have to broadcast information, spontaneously communicate environmental changes and where control autonomy is a crucial requirement. Therefore, we compare the traditional way of object invocation with a port-based scheme and the model of event channels. An application scenario from robot control is used to highlight similarities and differences among these mechanisms.

The increasing complexity in the development of real time systems leads designers to make use of techniques that help handle the complexity. One method to deal with complexity that became popular in the last years is the use of the object oriented paradigm. Some advances in hardware technology have made it possible to overcome the overhead problems that prevented its adoption in the past. The paper describes an integrated software environment called SiMOO-RT, developed under the context of ADOORATA project (A Distributed Object-Oriented Architecture for Real-Time Automation), a Brazilian-German cooperation that guides designers to explore the whole phases of a real time software development under the object oriented paradigm. The main features of the tool are presented and validated by means of a case study and future directions of the project are highlighted.

The paper presents a novel approach to the automatic identification of objects/classes from a system specification. The methodology is aimed at the development of distributed real time systems (DRTS), especially those conceived for industrial automation applications. UML is used as the modeling language in conjunction with an extended version of traditional DFD (E-DFD), that conveys information on flow type (data or control) and on process complexity and timing constraints. E-DFDs are mapped into a graph and a tool is used to carry out an automatic graph partition, which allows the identification of a set of objects that constitute, from the design and test points of view, the 'best-fitted' architecture. To validate the proposed methodology, a case study is presented and analyzed, comparing two design strategies.

The paper presents a quantitative evaluation of the temporal behavior of object oriented programs implemented using different programming environments. The main focus of the evaluation is the real time properties and the overhead caused by each layer of the underlying communication architecture, in order to verify the suitability of those environments for developing distributed real time object oriented systems. In the current state of the work, Java/RMI running over Windows 95 and AO/C++ running over QNX OS are compared. An extension of the comparison to include DCOM/Windows95, DCOM/Windows NT and ObjecTime/Windows NT is under development.

This paper describes a powerful integrated development environment that covers all steps of the development of an object-oriented real-time application from initial design to the final evaluation. The system consists of a set of integrated tools for modeling, simulation, implementation, instrumentation, monitoring, and visualization that all work on the same OO system model. As all steps of creating a running implementation with visualized monitoring output from the design model are automatic, the environment encourages an iterative approach to the design of complex real-time control applications. This complete environment has been accomplished by integrating the SIMOO-RT modeling, simulation and implementation environment, developed at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, with the Jewel++ object-oriented instrumentation and monitoring tool from GMD, St. Augustin, Germany. The work has been done in the context of the ADOORATA project (A Distributed Object-Oriented Architecture for Real-Time Automation), a Brazilian-German cooperation.

This paper presents an object-oriented extension to the real-time programming language PEARL. The new language preserves PEARL's expressiveness for timeliness and industrial processes and, at same time, improves the language's readability and manageability (through the better encapsulation paradigm derived from the object concept). Moreover, the resulting object model allows the definition of inter and intra object parallelism in a transparent and simple way. Besides that, some extensions are also proposed to enhance testability and safety-related aspects of the language, such as the enforcement of deterministic temporal behaviour.

This paper describes an object-oriented approach for handling complex industrial automation systems. The proposed approach relies on relationships between modeling perspectives and integrates different models of existing object-oriented methodologies. It therefore supports the multi-disciplinary character of industrial automation projects. A framework based on the concept of viewpoints is also presented.