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With increasing demands and requirements for building complex embedded systems that involve complex machines, the demand for resilient embedded systems is even higher today. Building safe and secure embedded systems is paramount in the context of pervasive embedded systems across multiple domains and industries.
Why Does Real-Time Resiliency for Embedded Systems Matter?
Embedded systems operate on various criticality factors. Simpler embedded systems, such as a simple IoT switch that turns on a light in a home, may not be mission critical, but there are diverse industrial, medical, and automotive use cases where embedded systems require more critical timing, fidelity, and response requirements. As the complexity increases in applications that encompass multi-layered embedded systems which interact with each other to deliver a critical output (think autonomous cars, industrial robots, and physical AI), the need for the system to react and respond in real time exponentially increases. Mission critical applications warrant robust real-time resiliency for the embedded systems that drive these use cases.
Resilient Systems Also Need to Be Secure on Top of Being Safe
If a plant gets shut down, or any disabling critical power generations facility gets hit, it can directly impact society or even the topline of the company that could lose millions of dollars a day. The bottom line is that any security failure of a safety critical system can lead to catastrophic consequences in these complex industry domains.
Dynamics of Building Complex Embedded Systems
Complex embedded systems need to be real-time resilient. This implies that the system can respond within the required timeframe timed to the exact clock speed/in real time without compromising safety and security.
As today’s complex embedded systems consist of multiple subsystems interacting with each other through software, hardware, and electromechanical components, the ability of these systems to adapt and respond successfully in real time without jitter is very important. This requires foundational platforms that are resilient and continue functioning for a long time while providing safe and secure operations at near real-time responses.
The challenge lies in choosing the right foundational platform that can cater to high throughput, providing high fidelity with low latency and lowest jitter to avoid failing during critical situations. Any deviation from an expected response for a mission critical application could hence result in catastrophic failures given the nature of the use-case and application.
Hence, these complex embedded systems typically:
-Operate on deterministic, hard, real-time constraints to respond under all scenarios
-Comply with safety and security standards for software and hardware
-Depend on an ecosystem of reliable vendors, tools, and postproduction support after deployment
Safety and Security by Design Is an Integral Part of Resilient Embedded Systems
Another primary aspect of resilient real-time embedded systems comes from integrating safety and security from the ground up. During the design phase, embedded systems that have incorporated safety and security natively tend to perform better in mission critical settings. As the system needs to counter security attacks continuously while guaranteeing the safe operation of the system, real-time resiliency becomes a deciding factor for choosing the right foundational development platforms.
The Solution: QNX OS for Safety, a Robust Foundational Development Platform
The right foundational development platform can guarantee real-time resiliency of mission critical embedded systems. In the early part of the development cycle, it is imperative that developers and system engineers make the right choice to choose a performant foundational development platform. The platform also needs to support a hard, real-time operating system, the right safety and security certifications, and an ecosystem of readily available development toolset.
Choosing the right pre-certified platform to incorporate safety and security is a first step to build real-time resilient embedded systems.
This is where QNX OS for Safety (QOS) comes into the picture. QOS is a pre-certified foundational software certified to various industry safety and security certifications that can help make your embedded systems completely resilient and safe to outside attacks while ensuring that the system is built as per the certifications.
How Does QOS 8.0 Enable You to Build Safe and Secure Embedded Systems?
QNX OS for Safety comes with a fully featured hard, real-time OS based on the QNX Software Development Platform 8.0 and certified to ISO 26262 ASIL D, IEC 61508 SIL 3, and IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO/SAE 21434 safety and security standards.
To account for the risk of harm to individuals who interact with these devices, a manufacturer must ensure the way the design, development, and maintenance of the hardware and software in these systems is appropriate for the context in which it will operate. That knowledge is encapsulated in standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508, and IEC 63204, covering the safety requirements of functional areas.
Along with the safety certifications, structured and disciplined processes for properly accounting for cybersecurity risk in a product lifecycle are accounted for in cybersecurity certifications such as ISO/SAE 21434. Various key industries including automotive, medical, industrial controls, aerospace, defense, power generation, robotics, and rail transportation rely on QNX OS for Safety to build safety compliant, secure, and resilient embedded systems.
Depending on QNX as a Trusted Partner for Building Resilient Real-Time Systems
QNX also provides the QNX General Embedded Development Platform (GEDP), a scalable modular foundational software solution to develop reliable embedded systems.
QNX GEDP includes sample reference solutions to accelerate the development of various software-defined embedded systems for different industries including industrial, heavy machinery, robotics, medical devices, commercial vehicles, and defense. Through a foundational stack that is backed by safety and security pre-certifications, QNX powers major complex development industries and is a core partner for building resilient and robust embedded systems.
This article was written by Nikhil Rai , Senior Global Product Marketing Manager, QNX. For more information on how the QNX portfolio of embedded software solutions can help accelerate safety-certification, ensure reliability, and reduce development time, visit QNX .