RESULTS of the Trust4All project

 Trustworthiness in embedded software

 

Innovation report:  Download

Summary:

The Trust4All project has developed a model to represent trust attributes supported by a middleware software architecture. This approach is specifically targeted at embedded systems that require a (pre)defined level of trust, due to the nature of the services they provide. The project focuses on the trustworthiness-related aspects of the middleware software architecture in domains such as Navigation, Monitoring, Mobile Information, Medicare and Office Automation, for which dependability is particularly important.
The Challange & Need:
The amount and importance of software in embedded systems is growing at a very rapid pace, for instance in the automotive, (home) medicare and domotica domains amongst others. It's also known form many cases that (embedded) software is the main reason for failure of the complete system. The economic value (of the related products and / or function) and the fact that individuals and societies depend more and more on the correct functioning of these embedded systems are the major reasons behind the Trust4All initiative. Trust4All is the third project of the trilogy Robocop, Space4U and Trust4All and fully utilises the results of the Robocop and Space4U projects. Robocop introduced a component Based Framework for High Volume Embedded Devices with focus on Robust & Reliable operation, Upgrading and Component Trading while Space4U's focus was on the validation, maturating and extension of the Robocop architecture by introducing Fault Management, Power Management and Terminal Management. 

Embedded systems are changing from closed and static stand-alone systems to open, dynamic and interconnected systems. It offers great opportunities to enhance the usability of systems; but also gives rise to growing threats with respect to the trustworthiness of the software behaviour. Aiming at improved manageability of embedded software poses ever-growing challenges in both technical and logistical areas. 

When analysing the envisaged needs of future application domains from the users' viewpoint, there is clearly an expectation that such systems should be able to provide (higher) levels of dependability. Meeting this demand will require the establishment of defined levels (ranging from medium to high) of trustworthiness in several respects: 

  • Security during critical actions to guarantee the promised behaviour; 
  • Reliability throughout a reasonable lifetime, in order to deliver the expected benefits;
  • Robustness during operation to guarantee functionality.
The Outcome:
The major result of the project is a model to represent trust attributes supported by an architecture that makes it possible at any point in time to verify & reason about the level of trust offered by a composed system. Its provides associated metrics and a methodology for dynamic monitoring of system status with respect to the model after (requested or un-requested) updates, upgrades or extensions. On the basis of this validation process, systems will be allowed to, or prevented from, executing applications or services that require a defined level of confidence. The resulting ISO/IEC 23004 standard on middleware is a major result of the projects. Seven of the eight parts of the standard are the result of the Trust4All project, Architecture, Component Model, Resource and Quality Management, Component Download, Fault Management, System Integrity Management and Reference Software.
    
The Deployment:
The results of the project have been validated in a large variety of application domains, Navigation, Monitoring, Mobile Information, Medicare and Office Automation. This has been done trough the development of the following demonstrators: Mobile Navigation, Document Management System, Monitoring for Elderly People, Taxi Driver Assistant and Home Medicare. Next to these demonstrators a large range of validation tools have been developed and used for the development of the applications.
    
Major project outcomes:
     Dissemination:
  • 74 publications
  • 6 presentations at conferences/fairs 

     Exploitation:

  • 2 new product concepts
  • 4 new services intended for internal use 

     Standardisation:

  • Almost all of the contributions for the ISO/IEC MPEG standardisation body, resulting in a complete new standard for middleware named ISO/IEC 23004 consisting of 8 parts including the reference software, have been contributed by the Trust4All project

     Demonstrators:

  • 5 real demonstrators showing the benefits of the developments in (5) different application domains: Navigation, Monitoring, Mobile Information, Medicare and Office Automation

     Tools:

  • 7 tools for the analysis and validation of trust related attributes of composed embedded software for development and run time use
  
"The work of Spanish partners has been partially funded by the National Programme on Information Technologies of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism under grant FIT-340000-2006-62".
     

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Last updated on 13 Aug 2008   (c) Trust4All project