Third-party Evaluation of the Flight Control Software

The N-Version Programming (NVP) approach applies the idea of design diversity to obtain fault-tolerant software units, called N-Version Software (NVS) units. The effectiveness of this approach is examined by the software diversity achieved in the member versions of an NVS unit. We define and formalize the concept of design diversity and software diversity in this paper. Design diversity is a property naturally applicable to the NVP process to increase its fault-tolerance attributes. The baseline design diversity is characterized by the employment of independent programming teams in the NVP. More design diversity investigations could be enforced in the NVP design process, including different languages, different tools, different algorithms, and different methodologies. Software diversity is the resulting dissimilarities appearing in the NVS member versions. We characterize it from four different points of view that are designated as: structural diversity, fault diversity, tough-spot diversity, and failure diversity. Our goals are to find a way to quantify software diversity and to investigate the measurements which can be applied during the life cycle of NVS to gain confidence that operation will be dependable when NVS is actually employed. The versions from a six-language N-Version Programming project for fault-tolerant flight control software were used in the software diversity measurement.

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Design and Implementation of the Remote Control of the Manipulator

Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis ◽

10.11118/actaun201462061521 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 62 (6) ◽

pp. 1521-1525 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Marcel Vytečka ◽

Vít Ondroušek ◽

Jan Kolomazník ◽

Michal Hammerschmiedt

Keyword(s):

Remote Control ◽

Third Party ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Control Software ◽

Safety Standards ◽

Design And Implementation ◽

Remote Control System ◽

Working Space ◽

Ip Camera ◽

Reservation System

This article is focused on the design and implementation of the complex solution of the remote control of the industrial manipulator Katana 6M180. The main aim is to increase utilization of the machine and its monitoring, whereas the safety standards won’t be affected. Both parts of the design, the hardware as well as the software one, are discussed in this article. The hardware part consists of the protective cage, controllable lighting, power circuits, electronics, server, several cameras used for image processing of the working space and one IP camera used for monitoring. The software tools represent second main part of the described solution of the remote control. This software part of the solution consists of the main control software running on the server, the reservation system and third party software that solves connections between clients and the server. Special attention is paid to the implementation of safety elements, in order to increase the robustness of the whole system. The description of one resolved task that used the designed remote control system, is listed in the conclusion as a proof of concept. The task is focused on determining parameters of the objects in the working space of the manipulator.

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