Evaluating the Combined Effects of EMI and TID Radiation on Embedded Systems Based on RTOS

CH. DE OLIVEIRA; J. BENFICA; L. BOLZANI POEHLS; F. VARGAS; J. LIPOVETZKY; A. LUTENBERG

Biarritz

Conferencia; Radiation and its Effects on Components and Systems, RADECS 2012; 2012

The always raising hostility of the environment where embedded systems are employed, increases the necessity to perform combined evaluations considering Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and Total Ionizing Dose (TID) radiation. Although highly standardized, little effort has been made to evaluate the behaviour of embedded systems under these combined effects. In more detail, considering realistic environment conditions only the measurement of these effects can guarantee reliable embedded systems for critical applications. Moreover, it is important to highlight that due to the higher complexity of embedded systems, the use of Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs) has become extremely interesting in order to simplify the system’s design. An Intellectual Property (IP) called RTOS-Guardian (RTOS-G) has been presented earlier in order to monitor the tasks’ scheduling of RTOS during its operation. In this context, the main goal of this paper is to present a complete evaluation of the combined effects of EMI and TID radiation on embedded systems based on RTOSs. Experiments illustrate the consequences regarding the RTOS’s susceptibility and the fault occurrence probability. Moreover, the results provide information on the RTOS-G’s robustness under these conditions.