From NIWeek: Timing Issues Could Affect Safety-Critical Embedded Systems

Product developers need to be more aware of software timingand synchronization issues, especially in safety-critical systems such asautomotive airbags and robotic surgical tools, an embedded design expert warnedtoday during a keynote event at NIWeek 2010.

Jeff Kodosky, co-founder of National Instruments Corp., told an audienceof approximately 4,000 engineers that real-time performance of embedded productsis already suffering in some cases, largely due to inattention to such issues.Smart phones and handheld devices are experiencing timing problems, he said,and those problems are small compared to the issues that will be faced asembedded technology migrates more prominently into safety-critical designs.

"People have been building thesesystems all along, and they're not always as reliable as we hope," saidKodosky, who serves as Business and Technology Fellow for NI, a maker ofautomated test equipment and virtual instrumentation. "We want a much higherthreshold of confidence that these systems will work correctly."

Kodosky cited examples of potentialproblems for automotive airbags, robotic surgical devices, defense andaerospace systems, as well as future vehicle brake-by-wire and steer-by-wiresystems. He said that while smart phones and handheld devices can be easilyshut down when a timing issue occurs, the same is not true for safety-criticalproducts. "If you're in a critical automotive situation and you jam on yourbrakes or you need your airbag, you expect those systems to work," he said."Anyplace where you put a computer between you and some action, you need to besure there aren't any software glitches."

Kodosky blamed the speedy evolutionof computer processors for many of today's timing issues. "It's an extremelydifficult problem," he told Design News."All of the things that make processors run faster have confounded thedeveloper's ability to create determinant real-time systems."

To help solve the problem, Kodoskysaid that university-based computer science programs need to be more vigilantin teaching students to deal with timing issues. Today, he said, students arevirtually unaware if timing intervals in an embedded system are too long orirregular, in part because they are trained in desktop programming, wherereal-time performance isn't typically an issue. That, he said, must change.

"To the extent that you believethat computers will be involved in everyday products, you will need moreembedded programmers, rather than desktop programmers," he said.

Without better software developmenttools, timing problems could also be particularly vexing for so-called "domainexperts" - that is, doctors and scientists who want to create innovativeproducts but don't have a programming background.

"Timing problems will make it moredifficult for the new a euro ~Edisons' of the world who are trying to makesoftware-based products," Kodosky said. "It's our job to allow those new Edisons to invent."