Embedded and Autonomous Systems

Computers are becoming pervasive in running our machines, from spacecraft and power plants, to cars and household appliances. Increasingly, these systems are required to perform more complex tasks and to do so at greater and greater levels of autonomy. Many of these systems are in safety-critical applications, where errors can result in loss of equipment, or even human life.

A major effort in our center focuses on embedded and autonomous systems. We would like to create a new generation of formal verification tools that can be integrated into design environments for the development of complex, high-assurance embedded and autonomous systems.  Embedded systems are increasingly distributed, complex dynamic systems that must operate with a high degree of autonomy and survivability in diverse and unpredictable environments.  Our focus is on inventing new verification methods and tools to provide a rigorous means for checking the integrity and correctness of designs for these systems.  Our initiative has three broad research thrusts:

To assure our research initiative at Carnegie Mellon addresses the needs of real-time embedded and autonomous systems in practice, we have established a partnership with the Honeywell Technology Center (HTC). This initiative will also be an integral technical component of the newly formed High Dependability Computing Consortium, a partnership among Carnegie Mellon University, NASA/Ames, the Silicon Valley corporate sector, and other private and public sector organizations.
 
Updated: 10-Jan-2002
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