A Heterogeneous Multi-core Architecture with a Hardware Kernel for Control Systems

Rapid industrialisation has resulted in a demand for improved embedded control systems with features such as predictability, high processing performance and low power consumption. Software kernel implementation on a single processor is becoming more difficult to satisfy those constraints. This paper presents a multi-core architecture incorporating a hardware kernel on FPGAs, intended for high performance applications in control engineering domain. First, the hardware kernel is investigated on the basis of a component-based real-time kernel HARTEX (Hard Real-Time Executive for Control Systems). Second, a heterogeneous multi-core architecture is investigated, focusing on its performance in relation to hard real-time constraints and predictable behavior. Third, the hardware implementation of HARTEX is designated to support the heterogeneous multi-core architecture. This hardware kernel has several advantages over a similar kernel implemented in software: higher-speed processing capability, parallel computation, and separation between the kernel itself and the applications being run. A microbenchmark has been used to compare the hardware kernel with the software kernel, and compare the kernel on the multi-core platform with the kernel on the single-core platform.