Peter Fuhrmann

Fault-robust microcontrollers for automotive applications

The design space that a system architect should manage when designing a microcontroller for a safety related system is rather large due to the variety of faults that can affect the given equipment under control (EUC), the different failures that these faults can generate and the wide set of techniques that can be used to detect, confine or stop the resulting hazards, each one with its efficiency and cost. In this paper it is proposed a systematic platform-based approach, in which a library of blocks (HW and SW) is used together with a set of tools and methodologies to find the optimum solution in this design space, following the IEC61508 guidelines

Comparing fail-safe microcontroller architectures in light of IEC 61508

In this paper, an overview is given on the main architectures used in the automotive to implement fail-safe microcontrollers. The concept of a new HW-centric, distributed and optimized architecture is also presented. In light of the IEC 61508 norm for safety related electronic systems, a comparisons between these different architectures is done based on a reference design. The paper concludes discussing how the presented architectures can be extended to become fail-functional

Energy consumption prediction from usage data for decision support on investments: the EnPROVE approach

Abstract When intending to renovate an existing building, with energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions in mind, a building owner is always questioning himself if the available investment resources are being directed to an effective return and if there are ways to improve this return? This paper presents the innovative approach from EnPROVE project that responds the previous question in a positive way. The approach is based on predicting the energy consumption of a specific building, with different scenarios implementing energy-efficient technologies and control solutions, based on actual measured performance and usage data of the building itself. The key hypothesis of EnPROVE is that it is possible, from adequate gathering and assessing data on how a structure performs and is being used by its occupants from an energy viewpoint, to build highly accurate and specific energy consumption models relevant for prediction of alternative scenarios. The EnPROVE software tools assess the energy-efficiency impact of alternative technologies for which available investment resources can be directed and, thus, support the decision maker finding the optimized set of energy-efficient solutions to be implemented. These results are tailored to the actual building itself, through automated measurements of building usage and energy consumption.