Microcontroller Compiler-Assisted Software Fault Tolerance

Commercial off-the-shelf microcontrollers can be useful for noncritical processing on spaceborne platforms. These microprocessors can be inexpensive and consume small amounts of power. However, the software running on these processors is vulnerable to radiation upsets. In this paper, we present a fu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on nuclear science 2019-01, Vol.66 (1), p.223-232
Main Authors: Bohman, Matthew, James, Benjamin, Wirthlin, Michael J., Quinn, Heather, Goeders, Jeffrey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
Commercial off-the-shelf technology
Computer architecture
Computer programs
Error correction
Fault tolerance
Microcontrollers
Microprocessors
Mitigation
Neutron beams
Neutron radiation
Power consumption
Program processors
Radiation
Registers
Silent data corruption (SDC)
Single event upsets
single-event upset (SEU)
soft errors
Software
software fault tolerance
Software reliability
Source code
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Description
Summary:Commercial off-the-shelf microcontrollers can be useful for noncritical processing on spaceborne platforms. These microprocessors can be inexpensive and consume small amounts of power. However, the software running on these processors is vulnerable to radiation upsets. In this paper, we present a fully automated, configurable, software-based tool to increase the reliability of microprocessors in high-radiation environments. This tool consists of a set of open-source LLVM compiler passes to automatically implement software-based mitigation techniques. We duplicate or triplicate computations and insert voting mechanisms into software during the compilation process, allowing for runtime error correction. While the techniques we implement are not novel, previous work has typically been closed source, processor architecture dependent, not automated, and not tested in real high-radiation environments. In contrast, the compiler passes presented in this paper are publicly available, highly customizable, and are platform independent and language independent. We have tested our modified software using both fault injection and through neutron beam radiation on a Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller. When tested by a neutron beam, we were able to decrease the cross section of programs by 17-29×, increasing mean-work-to-failure by 4-7×.
ISSN:0018-9499
1558-1578
DOI:10.1109/TNS.2018.2886094