Tool Integration for Automated Synthesis of Distributed Embedded Controllers

Controller design and their software implementations are usually done in isolated design spaces using respective COTS design tools. However, this separation of concerns can lead to long debugging and integration phases. This is because assumptions made about the implementation platform during the design phase—e.g., related to timing—might not hold in practice, thereby leading to unacceptable control performance. In order to address this, several control/architecture co-design techniques have been proposed in the literature. However, their adoption in practice has been hampered by the lack of design flows using commercial tools. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article that implements such a co-design method using commercially available design tools in an automotive setting, with the aim of minimally disrupting existing design flows practiced in the industry. The goal of such co-design is to jointly determine controller and platform parameters in order to avoid any design-implementation gap , thereby minimizing implementation time testing and debugging. Our setting involves distributed implementations of control algorithms on automotive electronic control units ( ECUs ) communicating via a FlexRay bus. The co-design and the associated toolchain Co-Flex jointly determines controller and FlexRay parameters (that impact signal delays) in order to optimize specified design metrics. Co-Flex seamlessly integrates the modeling and analysis of control systems in MATLAB/Simulink with platform modeling and configuration in SIMTOOLS/SIMTARGET that is used for configuring FlexRay bus parameters. It automates the generation of multiple Pareto-optimal design options with respect to the quality of control and the resource usage, that an engineer can choose from. In this article, we outline a step-by-step software development process based on Co-Flex tools for distributed control applications. While our exposition is automotive specific, this design flow can easily be extended to other domains.

Fortifying Vehicular Security through Low Overhead Physically Unclonable Functions

Within vehicles, the Controller Area Network (CAN) allows efficient communication between the electronic control units (ECUs) responsible for controlling the various subsystems. The CAN protocol was not designed to include much support for secure communication. The fact that so many critical systems can be accessed through an insecure communication network presents a major security concern. Adding security features to CAN is difficult due to the limited resources available to the individual ECUs and the costs that would be associated with adding the necessary hardware to support any additional security operations without overly degrading the performance of standard communication. Replacing the protocol is another option, but it is subject to many of the same problems. The lack of security becomes even more concerning as vehicles continue to adopt smart features. Smart vehicles have a multitude of communication interfaces an attacker could exploit to gain access to the networks. In this work, we propose a security framework that is based on physically unclonable functions (PUFs) and lightweight cryptography (LWC). The framework does not require any modification to the standard CAN protocol while also minimizing the amount of additional message overhead required for its operation. The improvements in our proposed framework result in major reduction in the number of CAN frames that must be sent during operation. For a system with 20 ECUs, for example, our proposed framework only requires 6.5% of the number of CAN frames that is required by the existing approach to successfully authenticate every ECU.

Environmental sustainability control system of economic entities

The monograph is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the environmental sustainability control system of economic entities, both internal (internal control services) and external (state supervision (control) and audit). Effective control of the environmental sustainability of economic entities carried out by audit organizations and internal control units in cooperation with state supervision (control) and audit of nature users is carried out in order to verify the compliance of the nature of their environmental activities, products and environmental management systems with current legislation, standards, rules, requirements in the field of environmental protection and to confirm the reliability of their reporting. Confirming the reliability of the reporting of economic entities, environmental supervisors are able to conduct an independent assessment of the environmental sustainability and effectiveness of the environmental activities of the audited organizations, issue their proposals and recommendations for making informed decisions by various stakeholders. The interaction of audit organizations with the internal control (audit) services of enterprises and state supervision (control) and audit bodies will contribute to the timely preparation of reliable accounting and consolidated financial statements by enterprises and increase the efficiency of their environmental activities. It is intended for researchers, students, postgraduates and undergraduates, entrepreneurs, managers and anyone interested in the problems of environmental sustainability control of economic entities.

Removal of Pathogens from Domestic Wastewater Using Small-Scale Gradual Hydroponics Planted with Duranta erecta, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

This study aimed to evaluate the treatment potential of gradual hydroponics planted with Duranta erecta in the removal of pathogens from domestic wastewater. Two experimental and control units were configured in series. Each unit contains three bioreactors and was arranged in a cascaded configuration. The two experimental units used both plant and media, but the two control units used only media to treat the wastewater. Gravel and polyester sponge were used as media. Experimental unit 1 and control unit 1 used gravel as media; however, experimental unit 2 and control unit 2 used polyester sponges as media. The experiment was operated at hydraulic retention times of 1, 3, 5, and 7 days in a continuous mode. The performance of the hydroponic system was evaluated by characterizing the influent and effluent quality using standard methods. At optimum hydraulic retention time (7 days), the average removal of experimental units 1 and 2 was 98.7% and 89.8% for heterotrophic bacteria, 96.2% and 86.8% for total coliform, and 92.9% and 84.0% for fecal coliform, respectively. Analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference P < 0.05 between the two experimental and control units in removing pathogens, but no significant difference P > 0.05 was observed between the two experimental units and between the two control units. Heterotrophic bacteria and coliforms were satisfactorily removed from domestic wastewater via a gradual hydroponic system. Hence, the hydroponic treatment system planted with Duranta erecta has a promising potential in the removal of pathogens from domestic wastewater in developing countries including Ethiopia.

Survey of Automotive Cyber-Physical System Security

This chapter will provide a survey on cyber-physical systems security related to automobiles. In modern vehicles, there has been discussion on how automobiles fit into the world of cyber-physical systems, considering their interaction with both the cyber and physical worlds and interconnected systems. With many modern vehicles being connected to the outside world, there are many vulnerabilities introduced. Modern cars contain many electronic control units and millions of lines of code, which, if compromised, could have fatal consequences. Interfaces to the outside world (e.g., in-vehicle infotainment) may be used as a vector to attack these critical components.

Recent Development of Optofluidics for Imaging and Sensing Applications

Optofluidics represents the interaction of light and fluids on a chip that integrates microfluidics and optics, which provides a promising optical platform for manipulating and analyzing fluid samples. Recent years have witnessed a substantial growth in optofluidic devices, including the integration of optical and fluidic control units, the incorporation of diverse photonic nanostructures, and new applications. All these advancements have enabled the implementation of optofluidics with improved performance. In this review, the recent advances of fabrication techniques and cutting-edge applications of optofluidic devices are presented, with a special focus on the developments of imaging and sensing. Specifically, the optofluidic based imaging techniques and applications are summarized, including the high-throughput cytometry, biochemical analysis, and optofluidic nanoparticle manipulation. The optofluidic sensing section is categorized according to the modulation approaches and the transduction mechanisms, represented by absorption, reflection/refraction, scattering, and plasmonics. Perspectives on future developments and promising avenues in the fields of optofluidics are also provided.

Improvisation in current weather display system

ABSTRACT. Presently the current weather information at four International Airports in India is being provided to air traffic control units through a Close Circuit Television (CCTV) system. The meteorological assistant who sits in the control tower obtains the information from various panels in front of him, prepares the display card by filling values of various parameters and then displays it through CCTV system. This method of display is outdated and lacks quality. Two improved computer based display systems have been developed at Meteorological Office. Palam. These systems greatly improve the quality of display presentation. These can also be used to extend the current weather display system to distant users like, International Airlines offices. One of the system is under test at the Meteorological Office, Palam, Terminal and working satisfactorily. A remote extension of this display system is also working at international Meteorological Office at Terminal II which is 10 km away from the main office at Terminal I.

A Scalable Security Protocol for Intravehicular Controller Area Network

Intravehicular communication relies on controller area network (CAN) protocol to deliver messages and instructions among different electronic control units (ECU). Unfortunately, inherent defects in CAN include the absence of confidentiality and integrity mechanism, enabling adversaries to launch attacks from wired or wireless interfaces. Although various CAN cryptographic protocols have been proposed for entity authentication and secure communication, the redundancy in the key establishment phase weakens their availability in large-scale CAN. In this paper, we propose a scalable security protocol suite for intravehicular networks and reduce the communication costs significantly. A new type of attack, suspension attack, is identified for the existing protocols and mitigated in our protocol by leveraging a global counter scheme. We formally verify the security properties of the proposed protocol suite through the AVISPA tool. The simulation results indicate that the communication and computation efficiency are improved in our protocol.

A Comprehensive Study on Safety of New Energy Vehicles

New energy vehicles (NEVs) have become a fundamental part of transportation system. Performance of an NEV is hugely determined by batteries, motors, and embedded electric control units. In this paper, a comprehensive study that covers all these key components is presented. Mechanisms and characterizations of failures are given in detail. On top of these, algorithms for fault diagnosis are established based on big data of real-world NEVs with joint considerations of design flaws, usage behaviors, and environmental conditions. In this way, multiple types of faults can be detected ahead of time to avoid accident. Proposed methods have been verified by real-world operational data, indicating effectiveness while providing insights for NEV design optimization.