Incorporating Fault Tolerance into Component-based Architectures for Embedded Systems

Component-based software architecture is presented to support the process of designing and developing fault-tolerant computerised control systems. To this end, we combine an idealised fault-tolerant component, the C2 architecture style and protective wrappers, and embed fault tolerance techniques into component definitions. The resulting architecture is described by normal- and abnormal-activity components aiming to support a wide range of fault tolerance features. Use of this architecture enables to reason about system dependability already from the earliest development stages on, and to customise fault tolerance strategies according to application characteristics.