Laboratory for Dependable Computing, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden)

Chalmers University of Technology is the second largest technical university in Sweden. It was founded in 1829 in accordance with the will of William Chalmers, director of the Swedish East India Company. Every year Chalmers awards about 850 master’s degrees in engineering and architecture, as well as 200 doctorate and licentiate degrees. Research in dependable computing started at the Department of Computer Engineering in 1984. Today research conducted within the Laboratory for Dependable Computing (LDC) covers the areas of dependability validation, distributed dependable real-time systems, fault-tolerant software, security, and hardware testing.

The research staff of LDC consists of two full professors, five senior researchers, and some 20 PhD students. The group has been involved in numerous research projects supported by Swedish research funding agencies. Many of these projects were carried out in close co-operation with industrial companies such as Volvo and Saab Ericsson Space. The group also participated in PDCS-2 (Predictably Dependable Computing Systems 2) 1992-1994 (ESPRIT basic research), and X-by-Wire (electronic control systems for safety critical functions in automotive applications) 1996-1998 (BRITE-EURAM). Several fault injection tools for experimental validation of dependable computing systems have been developed within LDC, such as FIST (fault injection by heavy-ion radiation and electromagnetic interference), MEFISTO-C (simulation-based fault injection in VHDL), FIC3 (software implemented fault injection), and FIMBUL (scan-chain implemented fault injection).

Relevant publications

N. Suri and K. Ramamritham, Editorial: Dependable Real-Time Systems, IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 10, no. 6, June 1999 (IEEE Computer Society Press).
P. Sinha and N. Suri, “Identification of Test Cases Using a Formal Approach”, in Proc. 29th Int. Symp. on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-29), Madison, WI, USA, June 1999, (IEEE CS Press)..
P. Folkesson, S. Svensson and J. Karlsson, “A Comparison of Simulation Based and Scan Chain Implemented Fault Injection”, in Proc. 28th Int. Symp. on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-28), Munich, Germany, 1998, pp. 284-293 (IEEE CS Press).
N. Suri and P. Sinha, “On the Use of Formal Techniques for Validation”, in Proc. 28th Int. Symp. on Fault-Tolerant Computing (FTCS-28), Munich, Germany, 1998, pp. 390-399 (IEEE CS Press).
J. Karlsson, P. Folkesson, J. Arlat, Y. Crouzet and G. Leber, “Integration and Comparison of Three Physical Fault Injection Techniques”, in Predictably Dependable Computing Systems, (B. Randell, J.-C. Laprie, H. Kopetz and B. Littlewood, Eds.), pp. 309-327, Berlin, Germany, 1995 (Springer).
J. Karlsson, et al., “Using Heavy-Ion Radiation to Validate Fault-Handling Mechanisms”, in IEEE Micro, vol. 14, no. 1, Feb. 1994, pp. 8-23 (IEEE CS Press).

CVs of Key persons to be involved

Neeraj Suri holds the Saab Professorship on Dependable Systems at the Department of Computer Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. Earlier, he was on the faculty of Boston University. His research interests are in developing the theory, issues in verification, validation and experimentation in the composite areas of dependable, real-time, distributed systems. His research in these areas has been supported by the US funding agencies: DARPA, NASA, ONR, NAWC and he is a recipient of the NSF CAREER research award. He has been Program Co-Chair for two IEEE workshops on Error Models/Fault Injection and Dependable System Validation, and served on multiple program committees in the areas of distributed OS, Real-time and dependable systems. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), and also the Guest Editor for a TPDS special issue on ``Dependable Real Time Systems''. He is a senior member of the IEEE Computer Society, and a member of the IFIP WG 10.4 on Dependable Computing.

Johan Karlsson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology, where he has conducted research on dependable computing systems since 1984. His research focuses on experimental validation of dependable systems, dependable real-time systems, and cost-effective implementation of fault tolerance. He has served on the program committees for several workshops and conferences including the IEEE International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing, the European Dependable Computing Conference, and the European Workshop on Dependable Computing. He was the Workshop Chair for the 8th European Workshop on Dependable Computing in 1997.