A class of inherently fault tolerant distributed programs

Author

Bastani, Farokh B. ; Yen, I-Ling ; Chen, Ing-Ray

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Houston Univ., TX, USA

Volume

14

Issue

10

fYear

1988

Firstpage

1432

Lastpage

1442

Abstract

Software for industrial process-control systems, such as nuclear power plant safety control systems and robots, can be very complex because of the large number of cases that must be considered. A design approach is proposed that uses decentralized control concepts, and is based on E.W. Dijkstra´s concept of self-stabilizing systems (1974). This method greatly simplifies the software, so that its correctness can be verified more easily. A simple control system is described for a simulated robot that is tolerant of partial failure of controllers and mechanisms, and permits online repair and enhancement of the control functions.<>

Keywords

distributed processing; fault tolerant computing; industrial robots; program verification; programming theory; robot programming; correctness; decentralized control concepts; fault tolerant distributed programs; industrial process-control; robot; self-stabilizing systems; Computer industry; Control systems; Distributed control; Electrical equipment industry; Fault tolerance; Industrial control; Power generation; Robot control; Service robots; Software safety;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.6188

Filename

6188