Research
Research area of the C3E, TU Braunschweig
SoCRocket – Transaction-Level Modeling Framework for Space Applications
Increasingly large portions of electronic systems are being implemented in software, and its development cost starts dominating the overall system's cost. Software is also becoming the critical part of the development schedule, mainly because deploying and testing it on the real target hardware is complicated.
The DLR Spacebot Cup is a robotic competition to increase the autononous navigation and object manipulation in the field of space robotics. In this robotic challenge initiated by the DLR the robots have to detect colored objects on a planetary surface, navigate through tough terrain and manipulate the detected objects.
Satellite Swarm Sensor Network (S3NET) is a 2.5-year H2020 project coordinated by iTUBS that started 1st May 2016. Its consortium gathers 8 partners from 4 countries for a global budget of 2.5M€.In the field of earth observation from space modern approaches show a trend of moving away from the classical single satellite missions, towards fractionated and distributed sensor missions, where multiple satellites possibly carrying different types of sensors act in a formation or “swarm”. Such missions promise an increase of imaging and service quality and in many cases a decrease of deployment costs for satellites that can become smaller and less complex due to mission requirements.
MacSpace is a collaborative research and development project involving seven partners from throughout Europe and coordinated by Ramon Chips Ltd. MacSpace aims to research and develop a many-core digital signal processor chip and computer for use in space.The aim is to enable future difficult-to-achieve space applications that require demanding computation performance and provide the European space industry with unrestricted access to this technology.
Nowadays it is clear that the complexity of Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoC) architectures, comprised of various memory organization and communication schemes, continues to increase. This is placing the programming tools in the critical path of embedded system development. Currently most programmers use the Message Passing Interface (MPI) library to program their applications in order to achieve their maximum performance, although it is a complex task. On the other side OpenMP has been established as the de facto standard for programming applications on shared memory platforms. It is easy to use and obtains good performance without too much effort. Recently it has been successfully landed in MPSoC programming as well, increasing programmer productivity, reducing the design/development costs and time to market for such systems.
R5-COP focuses on agile manufacturing paradigms and specifi-cally on modular robotic systems. Based on existing and newly developed methods for a formal modeling of hardware and soft-ware components, R5-COP will support model-based design, engineering, validation, and fast commissioning. Using existing interface and middleware standards R5-COP will strongly facilitate integration of components from various suppliers.
Embedded systems are the key innovation driver to improve almost all mechatronic products with cheaper and even new functionalities. They support today’s information society as inter-system communication enabler. A major industrial challenge arises from the need to face cost efficient integration of different applications with different levels of safety and security on a single computing platform in an open context.
The C3E is delivering technical support to ESA IP cores by developing the CCSDS file delivery protocol IP core. For this project we are going through the full development cycle: designing the hardware software architecture, implementing the SystemC model and a preliminary driver side by side, implementing the VHDL model and then finalizing the driver. In the end there will be a demonstration at ESA grounds.
QI2S is a collaborative research and development project coordinated by Elbit Systems Electro-optics ELOP Ltd. QI2S aims to enable a dramatic reduction of the delay in the delivery of Earth Observation (EO) Hyperspectral (HS) data from image capture to receipt by the end-user of end product on the ground, from days or weeks to real-time or near-real-time which represents an improvement factor of 100x in delay and 420x in effective bandwidth.
ASAM targets a uniform process of automatic architecture synthesis and application mapping for heterogeneous multi-processor embedded systems based on adaptable and extendable ASIPs. It aims to define a new unified design methodology, as well as, related automated synthesis and prototyping tool-chains.
The care and treatment of patients is very time consuming. Especially the recording and diagnostic analysis of values which reveal the status of the human body can be made easier and more effective through technical means. However these technical means are usually maintenance demanding, big and impractical.
Together with companies and other University's departments in Europe, the C3E is engaging in the IoE project, working on future standards for the usage of the internet for a smart [energy] grid management. Core operating point is the intelligent home, the inclusion of electrial batteries – for example in electric cars – as well as the usage of the internet for energy management and the grid connection.
The purpose of this ARTEMIS-funded project is the development of a universal reference platform for robotic applications. Emphasis is put on cooperating, autonomous, and robust operating robots. R3-COP's approach is to create a development environment for robotic systems based on software tools, libraries, hardware platforms, and verification methodologies. Some exemplary use cases from different domains are implemented, such as underwater robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous manufactoring robots, and healthcare robots.
TU Braunschweig leads this project and contributes in the field of safety-relevant microprocessors.
Further information: www.r3-cop.eu
Contact: Jan Wagner
Smart and Scalable Satellite High-Speed Processing chain (S4Pro) is a 3-year H2020 project coordinated by iTUBS that started 1st November 2018. Its consortium gathers 7 partners from 3 European countries and one from an associated country (Tunisia). The global budget is of 2.6M€.
Over the last decades the number of satellites in orbit has been constantly growing and the spacecraft payload complexity and demand continuously increased. Today, satellites provide close to full Earth coverage and produce a significant amount of data that needs to be downlinked to Earth for processing.
