PROGRESS research projects

FLEXCON - flexibe controllers

Leader: Karl-Erik Årzén PRogram director, Ivica Crnkovic and Gerhard Fohler - locka project leaders Members: Ivica Crnkovic, Damir Isovic Former: Gerhard Fohler, Johan Fredriksson Lab: Division of Software Engineering Keywords: Flexible controllers, component-based software engineering Status: finished , start date: 2003-01-01 Partners: LTH Lund UniversityKTH - royal Institute of TechnologyHSV - Högskola Shövde Funding: SSF Web: Project web page Official university web page (in Swedish)

Overview Control and automation systems constitute an important subclass of embedded real-time systems. Control systems have traditionally been relatively static systems. However, technology advances and market demands are rapidly changing the situation. The increased connectivity implied by Internet and mobile device technology will have a major impact on control system architectures. Products are often based on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components. The rapid development of component-based technologies and languages like Java and C# increases portability and safety, and makes heterogeneous distributed control-system platforms possible. The evolution from static systems towards dynamic systems makes flexibility a key design attribute for future systems.The key challenge of FLEXCON is how to provide flexibility and reliability in embedded control systems implemented with COTS component-based computing and communications technology. Research will be performed on design and implementation techniques that support dynamic run-time flexibility with respect to, e.g., changes in workload and resource utilization patterns. The use of control-theoretical approaches for modeling, analysis, and design of embedded systems is a promising approach to control uncertainty and to provide flexibility, which will be investigated within FLEXCON. Other focal points are quality-of-service (dos) issues in control systems, and testing-based verification and monitoring of flexible embedded control systems. The main application area is adaptive industrial automation systems. An industrial robotics-based demonstrator will serve as the carrier of the project results.

Project publications A component-based approach for supporting functional and non-functional analysis in control loop design, Massimo Tivoli (former), Johan Fredriksson (former), Ivica Crnkovic, Tenth International Workshop on Component-Oriented Programming, Glasgow, Scotland, July, 2005 A component-based development framework for supporting functional and non-functional analysis in control system design, Johan Fredriksson (former), Massimo Tivoli (former), Ivica Crnkovic, Technical Report, MRTC, June, 2005

Results achieved For detalis seehttp://www.control.lth.se/FLEXCON/