Back-end software for highly dependable real-time control systems

A new generation of highly dependable real-time control systems (such as automotive brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire) is under development. Specific application domain requirements lead to the new features to be supported by the system software. These requirements are best supported by a time-triggered approach. Motorola is working on the time-triggered fault-tolerant communication hardware as well as participates in a software standardization committee. This article covers back-end system software for highly dependable real-time control systems including operating system, fault-tolerant communication layer and node-local configuration tools. System requirements, implementation strategy, communication scheme and system configuration mechanism are discussed.