Starting and Resolving a Partitioned BRAIN

Abstract

Time-triggered communication is a favored design strategy for safety-critical systems. However, the startup of time-triggered systems is a significant concern, since the time-line from which fault-tolerance is supported must be established in segmented mediums, e.g. multi-hop networks. The startup problems are particularly challenging since clique formation, i.e. the establishment of disjoint time-triggered communication sets, may be systematically induced. This paper presents an alternative startup solution based upon a braided-ring architecture called BRAIN (braided ring availability integrity network). Segmentation-induced cliques are particularly prevalent in this architecture, since each node presents a potential medium break. The described strategy dramatically improves startup performance in relation to current approaches by leveraging the cooperative action of adjacent nodes during startup and high-integrity data propagation.