ERTOS Research Projects
Overview
ERTOS has a number of tightly connected activities aimed at achieving the goal of trustworthy embedded systems. Together these form a comprehensive approach towards vastly improved embedded software. In addition there are a number of other projects most of which are opportunistic in the sense that they apply our capabilities in order to obtain other benefits.
Core Projects
The following projects address core aspects of the ERTOS strategy of leveraging microkernel technology for improving the reliability and trustworthiness of embedded systems:
The L4 microkernel is the key enabler of most of our work. It provides a minimal and efficient lowest software level, and is the only part of our software that is meant to execute in the privileged mode of the hardware. Much of the work on an L4-based embedded-systems platform has moved from research to commercialisation by our spinout Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs);
User-level device drivers form an essential part of any L4-based system, as the kernel contains no drivers. Running device drivers in user mode also helps containment of driver bugs and is an important first step towards fully encapsulating device drivers;
Component architecture for microkernel-based embedded systems (CAmkES) is a project which aims to provide support for developing efficient medium- to large-sized embedded systems based on L4 and the ESF;
Secure embedded L4 (seL4) is a project to develop a new version of the L4 API which satisfies the requirements of highly secure embedded systems;
L4.verified is a project which aims at mathematically proving the correctness of the implementation of L4;
probabilistic temporal analysis of operating systems (Potoroo) is a project which is developing techniques suitable for obtaining a complete timing model of an operating-system kernel such as L4;
virtualisation explores issues concerned with virtualisation of hardware and operating systems running on virtual hardware;
operating-system-directed power management investigates ways in which the operating system can improve the efficiency of power use in embedded systems.
There are also commercial deployment projects which are not listed as details are under non-disclosure arrangements.
Associated non-NICTA Projects
A number of non-NICTA projects are associated with ERTOS, adding to the critical mass of systems researchers. They have in common with most of ERTOS a strong focus on operating-system issues and their close association with ERTOS produces significant synergies.
Gelato aims at improving the scalability and performance of Linux, particularly on Itanium processors;
Mungi is a single-address-space operating system which is used as the basis of work on flexible coherency management and distributed persistent programming.
Former Projects
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