AutomotiveMixed Criticality System
Mixed Criticality is a concept used primarily in real-time embedded systems that addresses the issues that arise when tasks of different criticality are running simultaneously on the same system. This concept is especially talked about in safety-critical areas such as aircraft, automobiles, and medical equipment.
Key Features
1. Task's Criticality Level: Each task within a system has a specific criticality level. For example, in an automobile, brake control has a high criticality, while the infotainment system has a low criticality.
2. Resource management: The system allocates resources effectively to ensure that high-criticality tasks get the resources they need. This is essential to ensure the stability and reliability of the system.
3. Safety and reliability: High-criticality tasks must be performed despite system failures. Therefore, these tasks are subject to more stringent verification and inspection.
Application areas
- Aircraft control systems: The different control systems inside an aircraft are of varying degrees of importance, with those directly related to flight safety being prioritized.
- Automotive control systems: In autonomous vehicles or advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), safety-critical tasks must always be prioritized.
- Medical equipment: Equipment that is directly related to patient life should always be treated as high criticality.
“Mixed Criticality” system design plays a crucial role in complex, safety-critical areas. This concept increases the stability and reliability of the system and enables the effective management of different tasks.
Mixed Criticality in Automotive SDV
In automotive SDV (Software Defined Vehicle), the concept of using a high computing (Central Computer) is often mentioned.
The idea is to use SoCs with high computing power in a zonal architecture of ECUs, where operating systems with different safety (ASIL) levels run, taking into account the above mentioned “task criticality”, “resource management”, “safety and reliability”, etc. Although the concept has been around for a long time, it is still a futuristic concept and there are still many challenges to be faced.
Qualcomm today announced the latest addition to its Snapdragon® Digital Chassis™ product portfolio with the launch of the Snapdragon Ride™ Flex SoC in 2023. The Flex SoC is designed to support mixed-criticality workloads across heterogeneous compute resources, enabling digital cockpit, ADAS and autonomous driving functions to coexist on a single SoC. Designed to meet the highest levels of automotive safety, the Flex SoC's hardware architecture supports isolation, freedom from interference, and quality of service (QoS) for specific ADAS functions and is housed in a dedicated Automotive Safety Integrity Level D (ASIL-D) Safety Island. The Flex SoC is also pre-integrated with the Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR), a software platform that supports multiple operating systems concurrent operation, hypervisor activation via isolated virtual machines, and real-time operating systems (OS) to meet mixed-criticality workload requirements for driver assistance safety systems, digitally reconfigurable clusters, infotainment systems, driver monitoring systems (DMS), and parking assistance systems. [Source: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/01/qualcomm-unveils-snapdragon-ride-flex---the-automotive-industry-]
SoC vendors like Qualcomm, OS vendors like RedHat and Electrobit (EB), and others are all taking an interest in Mixed Criticality and creating roadmaps. It's still a long way off from commercialization, but it's a direction we're headed in, and we're seeing a lot of these concepts popping up in automotive companies. It's a topic worth researching and watching closely.