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This report presents the outcome analysis from the System-on-Module survey taken during April and May 2022 among the members of the System-on-Chip interest group.

Due to the possible damage caused by unforeseen failures of safety-critical systems, it is crucial to maintain these systems appropriately to ensure high reliability and availability. If numerous units of a system are installed in various areas and permanent access is not guaranteed, remote, data-driven condition monitoring methods can be used to schedule maintenance actions and to prevent unexpected failures. Thereby, failure precursors identified by unsupervised anomaly detection algorithms can be used to detect system malfunctions or to assess the systems condition. The anomaly detection process presented in this paper proposes a novel integrative combination of noise extraction using wavelet transforms and unsupervised algorithms to improve the detectability of a broad variety of anomalies for safety-critical electronics. Here, the performance of this modular process is demonstrated by identifying outlying data samples in datasets generated by the CERN Radiation Monitoring Electronics (CROME) system.

The new generation of Radiation Monitoring electronics developed at CERN, called the CERN RadiatiOn Monitoring Electronics (CROME), is a Zynq-7000 SoC-based Data Acquisition and Control system that replaces the previous generation to offer a higher safety standard, flexible integration and parallel communication with devices installed throughout the CERN complex. A TCP/IP protocol based C networking library, ROMULUSlib, was developed that forms the interface between CROME and the SCADA supervision software through the ROMULUS protocol. ROMULUSlib encapsulates Real-Time and Historical data, parameters and acknowledgement data in TCP/IP frames that offers high reliability and flexibility, full-duplex communication with the CROME devices and supports multi-architecture development by utilization of the POSIX standard. ROMULUSlib is autonomous as it works as a standalone library that can support integration with supervision applications by addition or modification of parameters of the data frame. This paper discusses the ROMULUS protocol, the ROMULUS Data frame and the complete set of commands and parameters implemented in the ROMULUSlib for CROME supervision., Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2021, Shanghai, China

This paper details our experience with Formal Property Verification (FPV) of the digital section of a mixed-signal Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) for ultra-low current measurements. The ASIC was developed as a prototype front-end for the future version of the CERN RadiatiOn Monitoring Electronics (CROME), which is a safety-critical system. The main functionality could be formally proven even though the design contained several counters. A large number of faults could be discovered and removed. The paper aims to demonstrate FPV with SystemVerilog Assertions on a concrete example to give the reader an idea whether and how FPV can be applied to similar designs.

Ambiguously specified requirements can be a source of risk for safety-critical electronic designs. Requirement specifications in natural language are subject to misinterpretation. A method is proposed that reduces the risk of misinterpretations. Requirements are reformulated into semi-formal properties, which we call Natural Language Properties (NLPs). These statements are composed of natural language patterns which are then translated into SystemVerilog for formal verification. This reformulation is done by an independent verification engineer and then reviewed by the requirements engineer. Applying this technique for the verification of the CERN RadiatiOn Monitoring Electronics (CROME) led to the discovery of a safety-critical fault.

International audience; The largest variable cost to aircraft's manufacturers and flying companies is unscheduled maintenance. Therefore, developing efficient and modular PHM system capable to scale different architectures topologies for in flight and on ground health monitoring could be cost effective, since it brings indication and warning prior to damage occurring. In this paper, we propose an innovative diagnostic and prognostic health system based on a combination of modular acquisitions interfaces and processing units. An embedded JTFA (Joined Time-Frequency Analysis) method based on STFT (Short-Time Fourier Transform) or Wigner-Ville transforms are used to extract a relevant signature. The proposed algorithms and PHM system technology are applied for diagnosis of mechanical flows in a high speed rotating gear of a demonstrator machine. A detailed description of data management and rooting from vibration sensors to the processing unit will be exposed. Finally, a proof-of-concept experiment will be designed to demonstrate the integration of all the described system elements to detect any damage or anomaly into the monitored structure.

Structural health monitoring is certainly one of the key technologies required to provide the safety and the reliability of future aviation. Based on non-destructive testing, current on the ground periodical structural integrity inspections showed their limit as evidenced by the Columbia tragedy. For the time being, structural health monitoring technology has reached a good technology readiness level (TRL), but the integration of these solutions into future aerospace vehicle will require advanced system architecture. Further, improved SHM techniques and alleged assessment algorithm will be necessary to ensure an embedded integration, as well as to fully exploit their sensing capability. For now, most of high critical embedded systems are based on federate architectures, where each integrated calculator is dedicated to a specific function and to a unique kind of sensor. By consequence, the integration on the field of such solutions is highly difficult in aerospace industries due to the scale and the weight of the global electronics systems. Based on fully reconfigurable hardware, combined with versatile Input output interfaces, we propose a novel approach inspired from IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) topologies. Signal amplification, conditioning and acquisition combined with digital calculation usually requires the use of multiple chips specialised whether in analog or in digital processing. Programmable digital electronics is not a challenge anymore, thanks to the widespread PLD and PGA's technologies. On the other hand, programmable analog electronics has much more of a challenge. Nowadays, programmable analog electronics can essentially be found in FPAA and some SoC such as Actel Smart-Fusion or Cypress PSoC. To understand the flexibility that such solutions could bring, two examples of embedded systems will be exposed: * Static embedded system based on a central CPU developed in accordance to the conventional V-model. The system is intended to monitor the integrity of a rotator Air blade and is currently integrated into A400M Aircrafts. * Dynamic and reconfigurable embedded system developed using "model based approach". In this module, multi diagnostic techniques based on PZT sensors are instrumented using a unique programmable SoC (System on Chip) which includes an ARM Cortex M3 32 bits CPU, analog and Digital CPLD. Damage assessments algorithms are therefore managed by the calculator, the sensor interface is performed through a charge amplifier inside the SoC and the data are transmitted by an Ethernet controller. To cover large areas, the system is fully scalable and accepts a hardware upgrade. Based on guided waves or electromechanical impedance analysis, the presented solutions are capable to detect different kinds of events such as impacts or flaws such as corrosion, cracks or delaminations ; no matter if the probed structure was made of composite or metallic alloy.; Dans une aviation où la sécurité des vols est au cœur des préoccupations des constructeurs, le contrôle de santé des structures est l'un des nouveaux pôles majeurs de recherche et développement engagé par la communauté aéronautique depuis ces dix dernières années. Un système SHM (structural Heath monitoring) intégré aux structures avioniques (tels que le sont déjà les systèmes de monitoring des moteurs) permettrait de : * rendre l'aviation plus sûre et éviterait certains des accidents aériens ; * réduire les coûts de maintenance ; * alléger, à terme, le poids total car cela permettrait de d'éviter les sur-renforcements structuraux actuels. Le travail développé durant cette thèse, dans le cadre d'un projet industriel, concerne le développement de solutions exploitant l'utilisation de nœuds piezoélectriques au sein de microsystèmes reconfigurables dédiés à la détection de défauts dans des éléments de structure d'avion. L'exploitation de données issues de la génération/capture d'ondes de Lamb ainsi que des techniques se basant sur l'étude de l'impédance électromécanique du capteur ont été développées et étudiées sur différents types de défauts identifiés tels que cracks, corrosion etc... La méthode proposée repose sur la comparaison et l'évolution dans le temps de signatures de réseaux de capteurs utilisant l'effet piezoélectrique et placés sur des éléments choisis de structures avioniques. L'interface capteur-matériau a été spécialement étudiée afin de garantir le couplage le plus efficace possible. Les techniques de " monitoring " ainsi développées ont été testées sur des structures aéronautiques extraites d'ATR72 et des structures sandwichs en matériaux composites. Différentes solutions d'intégration de ces capteurs et nœuds ont été passées en revue et une démarche a été proposée, allant de l'architecture des effecteurs au conditionnement et à la transmission des signaux et informations d'intéret. Une nouvelle vision de l'électronique de détection de défauts, permettant de développer une instrumentation " universelle " de capteurs à travers une combinaison de circuits numériques/analogiques reconfigurables à entrées/sorties versatiles, a été implémentée et testée avec succès.