Safety Enhancement for Real-Time Parallel Applications in Distributed Automotive Embedded Systems: A Stable Stopping Approach

Abstract

In distributed automotive embedded systems, safety issues run through the entire life cycle, and safety mechanisms for error handling are desirable for risk control. This article focuses on safety enhancement (i.e., safety mechanisms for error handling) for a safety-critical automotive application within its deadline. A stable stopping approach used for safety enhancement for an automotive application is proposed based on the static recovery mechanism provided in ISO 26262. The Stable Stopping-based Safety Enhancement (SSSE) approach is proposed by combining known backward recovery, proposed forward recovery, and proposed forward-and-backward recovery through primary-backup repetition. The stable stopping (i.e., SSSE) approach is a convergence algorithm, which means that when the reliability value reaches a steady state and the algorithm can stop. Experimental results reveal that the exposure level defined in ISO 26262 drops from E3 to E1 after using SSSE, and such improvement enables a safety guarantee of higher level.