Communication infrastructure for IFATIS distributed embedded control application

In the paper, a communication infrastructure for faulttolerant embedded control system is discussed. It was developed as a part of experimental platform of the IFATIS project within the 5th European Union framework programme, dealing with dependable, reconfigurable integrated control systems. In such environments, a reliable and robust physical interconnection is required. The communication is implemented using dual timetriggered CAN (TTCAN) buses, allowing for temporally predictable data transfer. Communication load distribution in normal operation mode of the system, and faulttolerance in the case of the fault on one of the busses can be achieved utilizing the bus system reconfiguration features. Further, there are several fault-detection and fault-tolerance mechanisms integrated into the design of the platform. To facilitate the development of a distributed application, a distributed shared memory is introduced as an abstract layer over the communication subsystem. This significantly reduces complexity of dealing with defects in the system. It allows incorporation of different fault-tolerant mechanisms and simplifies the reconfiguration of the system in the case of faults.