Tttech Computertechnik Ag

Honeywell International Inc.

Fts Computertechnik Gmbh

Other

Tttech Auto Ag

Titech Auto Ag

Ittech Computertechnik Aktiengesellschaft

Wilfried Steiner

Günther Bauer

Brendan Hall

Michael Paulitsch

Guenther Bauer

Matthias Wachter

Hermann Kopetz

Harald Angelow

Stefan Poledna

Srivatsan Varadarajan

Martin Schwarz

Eric Schmidt

Georg Niedrist

Christian Fidi

Stefan Traxler

Matthias Wächter

Mehmed Ayhan

Mirko Jakovljevic

Arjan Geven

Günter Bauer

Stefan Rebernig

Wolfgang Forster

Marina GUTIÉRREZ

A method for integrating infrastructure software functions and automotive applications on an automotive electronic control unit (ECU) device. The ECU device includes a hardware architecture and a software architecture, wherein the hardware architecture includes two or more system-on-chips, at least two of which each comprise two or more processing cores and means to communicate with at least one other system-on-chip. The hardware architecture includes memory and means to communicate with other ECU devices. The software architecture includes one, two, or more virtual machine monitors, each of which executes one, two, or more virtual machines. At least two of said virtual machines each execute an operating system, which executes one, two, or more tasks, and the execution of two or more of the tasks uses the time-triggered paradigm. The tasks are tasks of automotive applications from at least two different automotive domains and are tasks of infrastructure software functions.

Method, device, and real-time network for highly integrated automotive systems

A method and a fault-tolerant computer architecture (FCTA) for fail-safe trajectory planning for a moving entity (MOV). The method and FCTA uses a commander (COM), a monitor (MON), and a safe envelope generating stage (ENV). Based on sensor input, the commander (COM) and the monitor (MON) produce real-time images of objects (OBJ, OBJ) detected. A trajectory planning stage (TRJ-PLN) generates trajectories (COM-TRJ, COM-TRJ), and the safe envelope generating stage (ENV) generates a safety envelope. The commander (COM) provides the one or more trajectories (COM-TRJ, COM-TRJ) to the monitor (MON) and the decision subsystem (DECIDE). A trajectory verification stage (TRJ-VRFY) verifies a trajectory (COM-TRJ, COM-TRJ) generated by the commander (COM) only if said trajectory (COM-TRJ, COM-TRJ) is completely located inside said safety envelope. A moving entity (MOV) uses a trajectory (COM-TRJ, COM-TRJ) generated by the commander (COM) only when said trajectory is verified by the monitor (MON).

Method and fault tolerant computer architecture for reducing false negatives in fail-safe trajectory planning for a moving entity

Methods and computer systems for establishing an interactive consistency property between receivers of messages. Messages are transmitted to receivers by a sender over a communication network including disjoint communication paths for connecting receivers and sender. Switches include local clocks. Local clocks of non-faulty switches are synchronized to each other with a maximum error (precision), and receivers detect switch failures. Redundant copies of a message are forwarded by sender to each receiver across different disjoint communication paths. A switch of each disjoint path is configured such that redundant copies are forwarded to each receiver with a temporal distance between disjoint paths. That distance is selected such that all non-faulty receivers receive redundant copies in the same receive order, when the switches and communication links of the disjoint paths exhibit no failure. Each receiver concludes from the receive order whether and which redundant copy to accept to satisfy the interactive consistency property.

Method and computer system for establishing an interactive consistency property

A method for transmitting control commands in a computer system, which includes components at least in the form of nodes, actuators and communication systems, wherein the control commands are communicated over the communication systems from the nodes to the actuators, and wherein one or more of the components may fail to operate according their specification. For consistently accepting control commands at the actuators, the nodes and their control commands are assigned priorities, wherein a node and its control commands have the same priority, wherein at least two priorities are used, wherein a high priority node produces high priority control commands and a low priority node produces low priority control commands, and wherein a high priority node is configured to communicate its control commands over at least two communication systems to the actuators and a low priority node is configured to communicate its low priority control commands over at least one communication system to the actuators. An actuator accepts the high priority control commands from the high priority node as long as it receives said high priority control commands on any one of the communication systems, and in this first case, it discards the low priority control commands, and stops to accept said high priority control commands in case said actuator does not receive said high priority control commands from any of the communication systems for a configurable duration, and in the second case, the actuator starts to accept low priority control commands.

Method and computer system to consistently control a set of actuators

A method for transmitting real-time messages in a computer network (), in particular real-time computer network, wherein said network comprises two or more computing nodes () and one or more star couplers (), wherein said nodes are interconnected via at least one star coupler, wherein each node is connected to at least one star coupler via at least one of the communication links (), and wherein the nodes exchange messages (MM) with one another and with the at least one star coupler, and wherein star couplers, which are synchronized to a global time base (C), transmit a first non-empty set (SSET) of real-time messages according to a synchronized communication paradigm, and/or wherein computing nodes, which are synchronized to the global time base, transmit said first non-empty set of real-time messages according to the synchronized communication paradigm, wherein a star coupler, which is not synchronized to a global time base, and/or a computing node, which is not synchronized to a global time base, transmits a second non-empty subset (CSET) of said first non-empty subset of real-time messages according to an unsynchronized communication paradigm and stops the transmission of said second non-empty subset of real-time messages according to the synchronized communication paradigm.

Method to improve availability of real-time computer networks

A method is provided to detect and handle failures in the communication in a network, including a sender () and a receiver (), where communication between the sender and the receiver is message-oriented. The method includes: (a) the sender sending a message (M, M-C, M-C) to the receiver; (b) the sender monitoring the transmission process of the message inside the sender and/or monitoring the message; (c) the sender executing a correctness check of (i) the message, e.g., its contents, and/or (ii) the transmission process of the message inside the sender; and (d) after the correctness check(s) has/have been completed, the sender informs the receiver of the result of the correctness check(s), wherein (e) the receiver of the message marks the message as being faulty and/or discards the message if the result of a correctness check indicates that the message and/or transmission process is faulty.

Method to detect and to handle failures in the communication in a computer network

The invention relates to a method for transmitting messages in a computer network of a real-time system comprising components in the form of computing nodes and star couplets. A first group of components sends, relays or receives time-controlled messages according to a communication schedule, and a second group of components does not communicate according to a communication schedule. For example, the computing nodedoes not execute a communication schedule, i.e. the computing nodedoes not send time-controlled messages. Instead, the computing nodereacts to receiving a message-by sending a message-in response. According to the invention, the message-is sent in a time-controlled manner, for example by a star coupler. The computing nodereceives the message-at time-and reacts to receiving the message-by sending the message-at time-to the star coupler. The star couplerreceives the message-at time-. Preferably an upper limit OBS of the maximum time interval between the receiving time-and the sending time-is determined in the computing node. In this way, the star couplercan schedule the relaying time-, at which the message-is relayed in the network, as a time-controlled time. Alternatively, the computing nodereacts by reading a current value from a local sensor, by altering the state of an actuator.

Method and computer network for transmitting messages

An information exchange between at least two processes (FEED_PROC-, FEED_PROC-, CONSUME_PROC-) communicating with each other using at least one queue (QUEUE-) uses a placement plan for determining the order in which messages are placed into the queue. The information feeding processes (FEED_PROC-, FEED_PROC-) place pieces of information (MESG-, MESG-) into the queue (QUEUE-), from where an information consuming process (CONSUME_PROC-) sequentially consumes the pieces of information. The placement plan describes, for at least one possible value of identifying information contained in each of the pieces of information, a respective position (POS-, POS-) in the queue (QUEUE-), such that the pieces of information (MESG-, MESCG-) or respective references thereto are placed into the queue according to positions in the queue (QUEUE-) corresponding to the respective values of the identifying information in the pieces of information.

Static message placement in queues based on an apriori defined placement plan

The invention relates to a method for transmitting messages in a computer network, and to a computer network of this type. The computer network comprises computing nodes (-), said computing nodes (-) being interconnected via at least one star coupler () and/or at least one multi-hop network (), wherein each computing node (-) is connected via at least one communication line () to the at least one star coupler () and/or the at least one multi-hop network (), and wherein the computing nodes (-) exchange Ethernet messages with one another and with the at least one star coupler () and/or the at least one multi-hop network (). A set of two or more components are directly connected to one another in each case by two or more communication lines (), wherein each component in the set is either a computing node (-) or a star coupler (), and sending components in the set of components send to at least two of the two or more communication lines () at least a proportion of the Ethernet messages that are to be sent, and receiving components in the set of components then accept and/or forward at least a proportion of the Ethernet messages received via the two or more communication lines () only if at least two identical messages are received via at least two different communication lines.

Method for transmitting messages in a computer network, and computer network

The invention relates to a method for synchronizing local clocks in a distributed computer network, where said computer network consists of a number of components that are connected to each other via bi-directional communication links, characterized in that

Method for synchronizing local clocks in a distributed computer system

The invention relates to a method for the redundant transmission of messages in a distributed real-time system, wherein the real-time system comprises two or more computing nodes (-) and one or more star couplers (-), wherein the computing nodes (-) are connected to the star couplers (-) by means of bidirectional communication lines () and the star couplers (-) are interconnected by bidirectional communication lines (), and wherein the star couplers (-) connected by the communication lines () form a network infrastructure (), wherein one or more star couplers (-) of the network infrastructure () perform one or more activity rasters (), wherein an activity raster () consists of alternating active phases () and rest phases (), and wherein any message sent in the network infrastructure is assigned to precisely one activity raster (). The invention also relates to a network infrastructure and also a real-time system comprising a network infrastructure of this type.

Method and network infrastructure for the redundant transmission of messages in a distributed real-time system

The goal of the present invention is to improve the useful data efficiency and reliability in the use of commercially available ETHERNET controllers, in a distributed real time computer system, by a number of node computers communicating via one or more communication channels by means of TT ETHERNET messages. To achieve this goal, a distinction is made between the node computer send time (KNSZPKT) and the network send time (NWSZPKT) of a message. The KNSZPKT must wait for the NWSZPKT, so that under all circumstances, the start of the message has arrived in the TT star coupler at the NWSZPKT, interpreted by the clock in the TT star coupler. The TT star coupler is modified, so that a message arriving from a node computer is delayed in an intelligent port of the TT star coupler until the NWSZPKT can send it precisely at the NWSZPKT into the TT network.

Communication method for the transmission of TT ethernet messages in a distributed real time computer system

In a network based on IEEE 1588, comprising a plurality of nodes () and a plurality of connections where each connection connects at least two nodes to allow communication between nodes including the exchange of messages according to a network protocol, the synchronization of IEEE 1588 is improved by allowing multiple grandmaster clocks () to operate simultaneously in the system. Thus, the re-election protocol of IEEE 1588 is made obsolete. For this, a multitude of nodes form a subsystem implementing a high-availability grand master clock () according to the IEEE 1588 Standard, wherein the subsystem is configured to tolerate the failure of at least one of said nodes forming said subsystem. Bi-directional communication link () are configured for physically connecting a IEEE 1588 Master clocks () and/or IEEE 1588 Slave clocks () to the subsystem implementing a high-availability grand master clock ().

Network and method for implementing a high-availability grand master clock

A communication switch comprises a plurality of ports and a processing unit configured to identify source ports and destination ports from the plurality of ports on a per virtual link basis. Each virtual link comprises one or more source ports via which frames are received from one or more source nodes and one or more destination ports via which received frames are forwarded to one or more destination nodes. For at least one virtual link, the processing unit is configured to accept more than one of the plurality of ports as source ports.

Versatile source port enforcement for data networks

The aim of the present invention is that of establishing a fault-tolerant global time in a fault-tolerant communication system of a distributed real-time system. For this purpose, a fault-tolerant message switching unit is provided, which is composed of four independent switching units. These four independent switching units jointly establish a fault-tolerant time. The terminal systems are connected to a fault-tolerant message switching unit via two independent fail-silent communication channels, so that the clock synchronization and network connections are preserved, even if a part of the fault-tolerant switching unit or of a communication channel fails.

Growing community of inventors

Vienna, Austria

Wilfried Steiner