System-Level Design of GPU-Based Embedded Systems

System-Level Design of GPU-Based Embedded Systems PDF

Author: Arian Maghazeh

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 9176851753

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Modern embedded systems deploy several hardware accelerators, in a heterogeneous manner, to deliver high-performance computing. Among such devices, graphics processing units (GPUs) have earned a prominent position by virtue of their immense computing power. However, a system design that relies on sheer throughput of GPUs is often incapable of satisfying the strict power- and time-related constraints faced by the embedded systems. This thesis presents several system-level software techniques to optimize the design of GPU-based embedded systems under various graphics and non-graphics applications. As compared to the conventional application-level optimizations, the system-wide view of our proposed techniques brings about several advantages: First, it allows for fully incorporating the limitations and requirements of the various system parts in the design process. Second, it can unveil optimization opportunities through exposing the information flow between the processing components. Third, the techniques are generally applicable to a wide range of applications with similar characteristics. In addition, multiple system-level techniques can be combined together or with application-level techniques to further improve the performance. We begin by studying some of the unique attributes of GPU-based embedded systems and discussing several factors that distinguish the design of these systems from that of the conventional high-end GPU-based systems. We then proceed to develop two techniques that address an important challenge in the design of GPU-based embedded systems from different perspectives. The challenge arises from the fact that GPUs require a large amount of workload to be present at runtime in order to deliver a high throughput. However, for some embedded applications, collecting large batches of input data requires an unacceptable waiting time, prompting a trade-off between throughput and latency. We also develop an optimization technique for GPU-based applications to address the memory bottleneck issue by utilizing the GPU L2 cache to shorten data access time. Moreover, in the area of graphics applications, and in particular with a focus on mobile games, we propose a power management scheme to reduce the GPU power consumption by dynamically adjusting the display resolution, while considering the user's visual perception at various resolutions. We also discuss the collective impact of the proposed techniques in tackling the design challenges of emerging complex systems. The proposed techniques are assessed by real-life experimentations on GPU-based hardware platforms, which demonstrate the superior performance of our approaches as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques.

Companion Robots for Older Adults

Companion Robots for Older Adults PDF

Author: Sofia Thunberg

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2024-05-06

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 9180755747

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This thesis explores, through a mixed-methods approach, what happens when companion robots are deployed in care homes for older adults by looking at different perspectives from key stakeholders. Nine studies are presented with decision makers in municipalities, care staff and older adults, as participants, and the studies have primarily been carried out in the field in care homes and activity centres, where both qualitative (e.g., observations and workshops) and quantitative data (surveys) have been collected. The thesis shows that companion robots seem to be here to stay and that they can contribute to a higher quality of life for some older adults. It further presents some challenges with a certain discrepancy between what decision makers want and what staff might be able to facilitate. For future research and use of companion robots, it is key to evaluate each robot model and potential use case separately and develop clear routines for how they should be used, and most importantly, let all stakeholders be part of the process. The knowledge contribution is the holistic view of how different actors affect each other when emerging robot technology is introduced in a care environment. Den här avhandlingen utforskar vad som händer när sällskapsrobotar införs på omsorgsboenden för äldre genom att titta på perspektiv från olika intressenter. Nio studier presenteras med kommunala beslutsfattare, vårdpersonal och äldre som deltagare. Studierna har i huvudsak genomförts i fält på särskilda boenden och aktivitetscenter där både kvalitativa- (exempelvis observationer och workshops) och kvantitativa data (enkäter) har samlats in. Avhandlingen visar att sällskapsrobotar verkar vara här för att stanna och att de kan bidra till en högre livskvalitet för vissa äldre. Den visar även på en del utmaningar med en viss diskrepans mellan vad beslutsfattare vill införa och vad personalen har möjlighet att utföra i sitt arbete. För framtida forskning och användning av sällskapsrobotar är det viktigt att utvärdera varje robotmodell och varje användningsområde var för sig och ta fram tydliga rutiner för hur de ska användas, och viktigast av allt, låta alla intressenter vara en del av processen. Kunskapsbidraget med avhandlingen är en helhetssyn på hur olika aktörer påverkar varandra när ny robotteknik introduceras i en vårdmiljö

Beyond Recognition

Beyond Recognition PDF

Author: Le Minh-Ha

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2024-05-06

Total Pages: 103

ISBN-13: 918075676X

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This thesis addresses the need to balance the use of facial recognition systems with the need to protect personal privacy in machine learning and biometric identification. As advances in deep learning accelerate their evolution, facial recognition systems enhance security capabilities, but also risk invading personal privacy. Our research identifies and addresses critical vulnerabilities inherent in facial recognition systems, and proposes innovative privacy-enhancing technologies that anonymize facial data while maintaining its utility for legitimate applications. Our investigation centers on the development of methodologies and frameworks that achieve k-anonymity in facial datasets; leverage identity disentanglement to facilitate anonymization; exploit the vulnerabilities of facial recognition systems to underscore their limitations; and implement practical defenses against unauthorized recognition systems. We introduce novel contributions such as AnonFACES, StyleID, IdDecoder, StyleAdv, and DiffPrivate, each designed to protect facial privacy through advanced adversarial machine learning techniques and generative models. These solutions not only demonstrate the feasibility of protecting facial privacy in an increasingly surveilled world, but also highlight the ongoing need for robust countermeasures against the ever-evolving capabilities of facial recognition technology. Continuous innovation in privacy-enhancing technologies is required to safeguard individuals from the pervasive reach of digital surveillance and protect their fundamental right to privacy. By providing open-source, publicly available tools, and frameworks, this thesis contributes to the collective effort to ensure that advancements in facial recognition serve the public good without compromising individual rights. Our multi-disciplinary approach bridges the gap between biometric systems, adversarial machine learning, and generative modeling to pave the way for future research in the domain and support AI innovation where technological advancement and privacy are balanced.

Designing Embedded Processors

Designing Embedded Processors PDF

Author: Jörg Henkel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-07-27

Total Pages: 551

ISBN-13: 1402058691

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To the hard-pressed systems designer this book will come as a godsend. It is a hands-on guide to the many ways in which processor-based systems are designed to allow low power devices. Covering a huge range of topics, and co-authored by some of the field’s top practitioners, the book provides a good starting point for engineers in the area, and to research students embarking upon work on embedded systems and architectures.

Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems

Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems PDF

Author: Gabriela Nicolescu

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-09-03

Total Pages: 764

ISBN-13: 1420067850

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The demands of increasingly complex embedded systems and associated performance computations have resulted in the development of heterogeneous computing architectures that often integrate several types of processors, analog and digital electronic components, and mechanical and optical components—all on a single chip. As a result, now the most prominent challenge for the design automation community is to efficiently plan for such heterogeneity and to fully exploit its capabilities. A compilation of work from internationally renowned authors, Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems elaborates on related practices and addresses the main facets of heterogeneous model-based design for embedded systems, including the current state of the art, important challenges, and the latest trends. Focusing on computational models as the core design artifact, this book presents the cutting-edge results that have helped establish model-based design and continue to expand its parameters. The book is organized into three sections: Real-Time and Performance Analysis in Heterogeneous Embedded Systems, Design Tools and Methodology for Multiprocessor System-on-Chip, and Design Tools and Methodology for Multidomain Embedded Systems. The respective contributors share their considerable expertise on the automation of design refinement and how to relate properties throughout this refinement while enabling analytic and synthetic qualities. They focus on multi-core methodological issues, real-time analysis, and modeling and validation, taking into account how optical, electronic, and mechanical components often interface. Model-based design is emerging as a solution to bridge the gap between the availability of computational capabilities and our inability to make full use of them yet. This approach enables teams to start the design process using a high-level model that is gradually refined through abstraction levels to ultimately yield a prototype. When executed well, model-based design encourages enhanced performance and quicker time to market for a product. Illustrating a broad and diverse spectrum of applications such as in the automotive aerospace, health care, consumer electronics, this volume provides designers with practical, readily adaptable modeling solutions for their own practice.

System-Level Design Techniques for Energy-Efficient Embedded Systems

System-Level Design Techniques for Energy-Efficient Embedded Systems PDF

Author: Marcus T. Schmitz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2006-01-16

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0306487365

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System-Level Design Techniques for Energy-Efficient Embedded Systems addresses the development and validation of co-synthesis techniques that allow an effective design of embedded systems with low energy dissipation. The book provides an overview of a system-level co-design flow, illustrating through examples how system performance is influenced at various steps of the flow including allocation, mapping, and scheduling. The book places special emphasis upon system-level co-synthesis techniques for architectures that contain voltage scalable processors, which can dynamically trade off between computational performance and power consumption. Throughout the book, the introduced co-synthesis techniques, which target both single-mode systems and emerging multi-mode applications, are applied to numerous benchmarks and real-life examples including a realistic smart phone.

Designing for Resilience

Designing for Resilience PDF

Author: Vanessa Rodrigues

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 9179298672

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Services are prone to change in the form of expected and unexpected variations and disruptions, more so given the increasing interconnectedness and complexity of service systems today. These changes require service systems to be resilient and designed to adapt, to ensure that services continue to work smoothly. This thesis problematises the prevailing view and assumptions underpinning the current understanding of resilience in services. Drawing on literature from service management, service design, systems thinking and social-ecological resilience theory, this work investigates how service design can foster resilience in service systems. Supported by empirical input from three research projects in healthcare, the findings show service design can contribute to the adaptability and transformability of service systems through its holistic, human-centred, participatory and experimental approaches. Through the analysis, this research identifies key intervention points for cultivating service systems resilience through service design, including the design of service interactions, processes, enabling structures and multi-level governance. The study makes two important contributions. First, it extends the understanding of service systems resilience as the collective capacity for intentional action in responding to ongoing change, coordinated across scales in order to create value. This is supported by offering alternative assumptions about resilience in service. Second, it positions service design as an enabler of service resilience by explicitly linking design practice(s) to processes that contribute to resilience. By extending the understanding of service systems resilience, this thesis lays the groundwork for future research at the intersection of service design, systemic change and resilience.

Distributed Moving Base Driving Simulators

Distributed Moving Base Driving Simulators PDF

Author: Anders Andersson

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 9176850900

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Development of new functionality and smart systems for different types of vehicles is accelerating with the advent of new emerging technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles. To ensure that these new systems and functions work as intended, flexible and credible evaluation tools are necessary. One example of this type of tool is a driving simulator, which can be used for testing new and existing vehicle concepts and driver support systems. When a driver in a driving simulator operates it in the same way as they would in actual traffic, you get a realistic evaluation of what you want to investigate. Two advantages of a driving simulator are (1.) that you can repeat the same situation several times over a short period of time, and (2.) you can study driver reactions during dangerous situations that could result in serious injuries if they occurred in the real world. An important component of a driving simulator is the vehicle model, i.e., the model that describes how the vehicle reacts to its surroundings and driver inputs. To increase the simulator realism or the computational performance, it is possible to divide the vehicle model into subsystems that run on different computers that are connected in a network. A subsystem can also be replaced with hardware using so-called hardware-in-the-loop simulation, and can then be connected to the rest of the vehicle model using a specified interface. The technique of dividing a model into smaller subsystems running on separate nodes that communicate through a network is called distributed simulation. This thesis investigates if and how a distributed simulator design might facilitate the maintenance and new development required for a driving simulator to be able to keep up with the increasing pace of vehicle development. For this purpose, three different distributed simulator solutions have been designed, built, and analyzed with the aim of constructing distributed simulators, including external hardware, where the simulation achieves the same degree of realism as with a traditional driving simulator. One of these simulator solutions has been used to create a parameterized powertrain model that can be configured to represent any of a number of different vehicles. Furthermore, the driver's driving task is combined with the powertrain model to monitor deviations. After the powertrain model was created, subsystems from a simulator solution and the powertrain model have been transferred to a Modelica environment. The goal is to create a framework for requirement testing that guarantees sufficient realism, also for a distributed driving simulation. The results show that the distributed simulators we have developed work well overall with satisfactory performance. It is important to manage the vehicle model and how it is connected to a distributed system. In the distributed driveline simulator setup, the network delays were so small that they could be ignored, i.e., they did not affect the driving experience. However, if one gradually increases the delays, a driver in the distributed simulator will change his/her behavior. The impact of communication latency on a distributed simulator also depends on the simulator application, where different usages of the simulator, i.e., different simulator studies, will have different demands. We believe that many simulator studies could be performed using a distributed setup. One issue is how modifications to the system affect the vehicle model and the desired behavior. This leads to the need for methodology for managing model requirements. In order to detect model deviations in the simulator environment, a monitoring aid has been implemented to help notify test managers when a model behaves strangely or is driven outside of its validated region. Since the availability of distributed laboratory equipment can be limited, the possibility of using Modelica (which is an equation-based and object-oriented programming language) for simulating subsystems is also examined. Implementation of the model in Modelica has also been extended with requirements management, and in this work a framework is proposed for automatically evaluating the model in a tool.

Robust Stream Reasoning Under Uncertainty

Robust Stream Reasoning Under Uncertainty PDF

Author: Daniel de Leng

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2019-11-08

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9176850137

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Vast amounts of data are continually being generated by a wide variety of data producers. This data ranges from quantitative sensor observations produced by robot systems to complex unstructured human-generated texts on social media. With data being so abundant, the ability to make sense of these streams of data through reasoning is of great importance. Reasoning over streams is particularly relevant for autonomous robotic systems that operate in physical environments. They commonly observe this environment through incremental observations, gradually refining information about their surroundings. This makes robust management of streaming data and their refinement an important problem. Many contemporary approaches to stream reasoning focus on the issue of querying data streams in order to generate higher-level information by relying on well-known database approaches. Other approaches apply logic-based reasoning techniques, which rarely consider the provenance of their symbolic interpretations. In this work, we integrate techniques for logic-based stream reasoning with the adaptive generation of the state streams needed to do the reasoning over. This combination deals with both the challenge of reasoning over uncertain streaming data and the problem of robustly managing streaming data and their refinement. The main contributions of this work are (1) a logic-based temporal reasoning technique based on path checking under uncertainty that combines temporal reasoning with qualitative spatial reasoning; (2) an adaptive reconfiguration procedure for generating and maintaining a data stream required to perform spatio-temporal stream reasoning over; and (3) integration of these two techniques into a stream reasoning framework. The proposed spatio-temporal stream reasoning technique is able to reason with intertemporal spatial relations by leveraging landmarks. Adaptive state stream generation allows the framework to adapt to situations in which the set of available streaming resources changes. Management of streaming resources is formalised in the DyKnow model, which introduces a configuration life-cycle to adaptively generate state streams. The DyKnow-ROS stream reasoning framework is a concrete realisation of this model that extends the Robot Operating System (ROS). DyKnow-ROS has been deployed on the SoftBank Robotics NAO platform to demonstrate the system's capabilities in a case study on run-time adaptive reconfiguration. The results show that the proposed system - by combining reasoning over and reasoning about streams - can robustly perform stream reasoning, even when the availability of streaming resources changes.

Applications of Partial Polymorphisms in (Fine-Grained) Complexity of Constraint Satisfaction Problems

Applications of Partial Polymorphisms in (Fine-Grained) Complexity of Constraint Satisfaction Problems PDF

Author: Biman Roy

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2020-03-23

Total Pages: 57

ISBN-13: 9179298982

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In this thesis we study the worst-case complexity ofconstraint satisfaction problems and some of its variants. We use methods from universal algebra: in particular, algebras of total functions and partial functions that are respectively known as clones and strong partial clones. The constraint satisfactionproblem parameterized by a set of relations ? (CSP(?)) is the following problem: given a set of variables restricted by a set of constraints based on the relations ?, is there an assignment to thevariables that satisfies all constraints? We refer to the set ? as aconstraint language. The inverse CSPproblem over ? (Inv-CSP(?)) asks the opposite: given a relation R, does there exist a CSP(?) instance with R as its set of models? When ? is a Boolean language, then we use the term SAT(?) instead of CSP(?) and Inv-SAT(?) instead of Inv-CSP(?). Fine-grained complexity is an approach in which we zoom inside a complexity class and classify theproblems in it based on their worst-case time complexities. We start by investigating the fine-grained complexity of NP-complete CSP(?) problems. An NP-complete CSP(?) problem is said to be easier than an NP-complete CSP(?) problem if the worst-case time complexity of CSP(?) is not higher thanthe worst-case time complexity of CSP(?). We first analyze the NP-complete SAT problems that are easier than monotone 1-in-3-SAT (which can be represented by SAT(R) for a certain relation R), and find out that there exists a continuum of such problems. For this, we use the connection between constraint languages and strong partial clones and exploit the fact that CSP(?) is easier than CSP(?) when the strong partial clone corresponding to ? contains the strong partial clone of ?. An NP-complete CSP(?) problem is said to be the easiest with respect to a variable domain D if it is easier than any other NP-complete CSP(?) problem of that domain. We show that for every finite domain there exists an easiest NP-complete problem for the ultraconservative CSP(?) problems. An ultraconservative CSP(?) is a special class of CSP problems where the constraint language containsall unary relations. We additionally show that no NP-complete CSP(?) problem can be solved insub-exponential time (i.e. in2^o(n) time where n is the number of variables) given that theexponentialtime hypothesisis true. Moving to classical complexity, we show that for any Boolean constraint language ?, Inv-SAT(?) is either in P or it is coNP-complete. This is a generalization of an earlier dichotomy result, which was only known to be true for ultraconservative constraint languages. We show that Inv-SAT(?) is coNP-complete if and only if the clone corresponding to ? contains essentially unary functions only. For arbitrary finite domains our results are not conclusive, but we manage to prove that theinversek-coloring problem is coNP-complete for each k>2. We exploit weak bases to prove many of theseresults. A weak base of a clone C is a constraint language that corresponds to the largest strong partia clone that contains C. It is known that for many decision problems X(?) that are parameterized bya constraint language ?(such as Inv-SAT), there are strong connections between the complexity of X(?) and weak bases. This fact can be exploited to achieve general complexity results. The Boolean domain is well-suited for this approach since we have a fairly good understanding of Boolean weak bases. In the final result of this thesis, we investigate the relationships between the weak bases in the Boolean domain based on their strong partial clones and completely classify them according to the setinclusion. To avoid a tedious case analysis, we introduce a technique that allows us to discard a largenumber of cases from further investigation.