Paper Info
Title
Semantically Enhanced Containers for Concurrent Real-Time Systems
Abstract
Future space missions, such as Mars Science Laboratory, are built upon computing platforms providing a high degree of autonomy and diverse functionality. The increased sophistication of robotic spacecraft has skyrocketed the complexity and cost of its software development and validation. The engineering of autonomous spacecraft software relies on the availability and application of advanced methods and tools that deliver safe concurrent synchronization as well as enable the validation of domain-specific semantic invariants. The software design and certification methodologies applied at NASA do not reach the level of detail of providing guidelines for the development of reliable concurrent software. To achieve effective and safe concurrent interactions as well as guarantee critical domain-specific properties in code, we introduce the notion of a Semantically Enhanced Container (SEC). A SEC is a data structure engineered to deliver the flexibility and usability of the popular ISO C++ Standard Template Library containers, while at the same time it is hand-crafted to guarantee domain-specific policies. We demonstrate the SEC proof-of-concept by presenting a shared nonblocking SEC vector. To eliminate the hazards of the ABA problem (a fundamental problem in lock-free programming), we introduce an innovative library for querying C++ semantic information. Our SEC design aims at providing an effective model for shared data access within the JPL's Mission Data System. Our test results show that the SEC vector delivers significant performance gains (a factor of 3 or more) in contrast to the application of nonblocking synchronization amended with the traditional ABA avoidance scheme.
Year
DOI
Venue
2009
10.1109/ECBS.2009.12
ECBS
Keywords
Field
DocType
autonomous spacecraft software,space missions,concurrent real-time systems,concurrent engineering,sec proof-of-concept,domain-specific semantic invariants,sec vector,aerospace computing,nonblocking synchronization,data structure,software development,aerospace robotics,critical domain-specific property,robotic spacecraft,static analysis,domain-specific policy,semantically enhanced containers,domain-specific policies,concurrent software,reliable concurrent software,software design,software engineering,sec design,real-time systems,programming,hardware,level of detail,real time systems,proof of concept,data access,mars,memory management
Data structure,Software design,Concurrent engineering,Computer science,Usability,Real-time computing,Software,Data access,Software development,Standard Template Library
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
978-0-7695-3602-6
1
0.40
References 
Authors
19
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Damian Dechev18122.87
Peter Pirkelbauer2529.37
Nicolas Rouquette3546.40
Bjarne Stroustrup436296.58