the definition of Critical Embedded Systems
Critical Embedded Systems are life-critical or safety-critical systems whose failure or malfunction may result in:
- Death or serious injury to people, or
- Loss or severe damage to equipment, or
- Environmental harm.
Applications including medical, industrial, defense/aerospace/security, and simulation typically utilize Critical Embedded Systems. Solutions for these applications are often produced in relatively limited volumes, with unique design elements for the specific problems at hand.
With this in mind, we extend the definition to high-performance, distributed computing systems that:
- Manage high bandwidth I/O,
- Involve real-time processing,
- Are environmentally constrained in size, weight, and power (SWaP).
technology ready to meet the challenge
Until recently, developers of these systems had a difficult time integrating components, subsystems, systems, and software from a wide variety of sources. They also have struggled with modeling the overall reliability, life expectancy, and servicability for these solutions, as methods to estimate these parameters vary widely.
With a new set of technology in place and more under development, options are emerging to help designers cope with the following parameters of Critical Embedded Systems design.
- Managing product lifecycles
- Keeping system costs in line
- Processing increasing data loads in real-time
- Presenting friendly, familiar user interfaces
- Integrating in systems-of-systems
- Fitting in limited space (SWaP)
- Certifying to regulatory requirements
- Understanding reliability, durability, servicability
- Utilizing interoperable form factors
