Timing Verification and Validation: Solutions, Experiences, Focused Surveys and Embedded Tutorials

Dear Colleagues,

Increased automation in all aspects of our lives has led to the proliferation of embedded systems for a plethora of applications in virtually any environment. Those systems often have timing requirements related to the convenience or absolute necessity of completing their duties by a given deadline. This holds for systems as diverse as video players, sensing nodes in smart cities, autonomous cars and space missions, to name a few. Satisfying those timing requirements imposes the use of specific design, verification and validation processes to prove that deadlines will be met, as well as the design of appropriate measures to manage overruns, with varying degrees of strictness across domains and applications.

This Special Issue aims at collecting contributions in the area of timing verification and validation (V&V) of embedded systems, spanning from research contributions, to practical experiences, and including topic-specific surveys and tutorials. The topics of interest include (but are not restricted to):

• Hardware, middleware, software and application aspects of timing V&V;
• Timing V&V from full cyberphysical systems down to hardware and software components;
• Timing-aware designs, and V&V methods, including timing analysis, WCET estimation, scheduling and testing;
• Functional safety aspects of timing V&V;
• Practical experiences on timing V&V for industrially relevant platforms and components;
• Timing V&V designs and methodologies for embedded systems in domains and applications with timing requirements;
• Timing aspects of autonomous and AI-based systems;
• Use of AI, statistics, probabilistic analysis, testing, tracing, monitoring and diagnostics for timing V&V;
• Focused surveys and tutorials in any of the topics relevant for this Special Issue;
• Domain-specific works related to timing, such as those related to freedom from interference in automotive, and interference channel analysis in avionics.

Dr. Jaume Abella Ferrer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• timing analysis
• verification
• validation
• testing
• autonomous systems
• safety
• freedom from interference
• performance requirements
• interference channels
• multicores