Automatic Generation of Diverse Software Channels by Means of Arithmetic Codes

Abstract

The importance of safety in the automation industry is continously increasing. Normative requirements result in considerably more effort at both the hardware and software level in order to fulfill functional and safety requirements. Advances of purely functional components cannot be applied easily because of the hardware dependent certification process. This limits the flexibility of hardware and user application. A new concept is needed in this area to overcome these challenges. This paper introduces a new methodology that uses arithmetic codes to detect hardware errors through software measures, thereby introducing a hardware independence, so that the certification process no longer limits the hardware design. Furthermore, a concept is presented to provide a high-level language like C for safety user applications and to automatically incorporate the safety measures into the user application, thus providing high flexibility for the application program.