Run-time behavior of Ardea: a dynamically reconfigurable distributed embedded control architecture

This paper presents the run-time behavior of the Ardea system. Ardea (automatically reconfigurable distributed embedded architectures) is a framework for developing dependable embedded systems based on graphical software specification. Ardea supports many fault-tolerance techniques including graceful degradation, where alternate implementations of software modules can be defined to replace primary implementations as hardware and software failures occur. At run-time, Ardea uses a set of managers on each processing element and a central "system manager" to recognize and respond to faults. This paper discusses the Ardea approach, Ardea's run-time behavior, and ongoing work on a prototype implementation of Ardea for control of autonomous UAVs