ITR: Foundations of Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This ITR project is aimed at developing the foundations of a modern systems science that is simultaneously computational and physical; it remarries time, concurrency, robustness, continuums, and resource management to computation. This project, because of its focus on foundations, will provide a fundamentally new paradigm, based on hybrid systems, for modeling and analysis of many complex phenomena that occur in the physical and biological sciences on both microscopic and macroscopic levels. These outcomes of the project are prerequisites for the deployment of embedded, autonomous computing in many safety-critical applications, from medical devices to transportation to national security needs in avionics. The attention to a new education model will create a new generation of engineers who will be able to master the design of complex, heterogeneous systems that will be the backbone of the future IT industry. The proposed ITR has four focus areas of research. (a) Hybrid systems theory. The focus here is on scaling up pioneering approaches that integrate physical modeling with computational systems. (b) Model-based design. The main effort here is to develop a set of models with solid mathematical foundations that allow for the systematic integration of diverse efforts in system specification, design, synthesis, analysis and validation, execution, and design evolution (c) Advanced tool architectures. The deliverables from this project will be a set of reusable, inter-operating software modules, freely distributed as open-source software. (d) Experimental research. The program will leverage existing system-building efforts involving avionics, anti-terrorism technologies, vehicle electronics, and autonomous robots. In addition we will apply our methods to networks of embedded systems for applications such as environment monitoring, building protection, and emergency response. The impact of this change on teaching and research is profound, and will not be confined to the graduate level. Based on the ongoing, groundbreaking effort at UCB, we propose to deliberately re-architect and retool undergraduate teaching at the participating institutions, and to engage in course development at a set of California community colleges with which UCB has established relationships and which have a high enrollment of Hispanic and African American students. Faculty and graduate student researchers from minority and other institutions will be recruited each summer to participate in a program called SIPHER (Summer Internship Program in Hybrid and Embedded Software Research).