Critical Real-Time Embedded Systems (CRTES) such as railway, aerospace, automotive and energy generation systems face a disruptive challenge caused by the massive irruption of mixed-criticality systems based on multicore processors. At the same time low-power is an intensifying demand in many market segments, a competitive advantage for CRTES that have to operate with limited energy (e.g., battery powered systems), an enabler for higher availability and a desired feature towards near-zero emission in systems with tens/hundreds of devices. Power is also a key aspect in mixed-criticality systems as another resource (together with time and space) that has to be shared among different applications and has to be strictly controlled not to cause undesired interferences. The main objective of SAFEPOWER is to enable the development of mixed-criticality systems with low power, energy and temperature in combination with safety, real-time and security support by a reference architecture orchestrating different local power-management techniques. SAFEPOWER builds a comprehensive suite of multi-core platform technologies as well as analysis, simulation and verification tools for low-power mixed-criticality systems, including hardware and software reference platforms assisting the implementation, observation and test of such applications. SAFEPOWER will demonstrate the benefits through two industrial use-cases and a cross-domain public demonstrator. The safety concept of SAFEPOWER will be assessed by an external certification authority and consider reference domains and safety standards (e.g. industrial IEC-61508, railway, automotive, aerospace). SAFEPOWE brings significant improvements w.r.t. power, energy, temperature, availability and lifetime of CRTES as well as new types of competitive products operating with limited energy. Impact and exploitation will also be facilitated by the strong collaboration with other related projects in the cluster of mixed-criticality systems.

The railway sector is currently acting in a fragmented way and in silos, corresponding most often to physical or functional subsystems or use cases, and the different owners/managers of the overall infrastructure at regional/national level, without global extensive view or full control of the global system involved by rail operations. With the progress of digitization, analogue devices based on relays were progressively substituted by digital ones, and it is more and more evident that enabling the communication between already existing digital tools for various subsystems can be beneficial. What is missing is an efficient, automated and standardized way for these integrated and interplaying systems to act as one ecosystem: sharing, integrating, identifying, correlating and exploiting the right data at the right time. In order to meet these challenges, the objective of LinX4Rail is to develop and promote within Shift2Rail framework and beyond, a sectorial common Functional Railway System Architecture. It will be supported by a widely adopted Shift2Rail Conceptual Data Model (CDM) that will, with the commitment of the Shift2Rail members, through Shift2Rail Programme Board Change Management Process, establish the standard for interactions between legacy and new systems and thus ensure sustainable interoperability between systems. The ambition of LinX4Rail is to achieve a comprehensive approach for the CDM, global system modelling specification and a strategy for implementation of technological breakthroughs, including RCA, with the inputs from a communication system perspective and give a vision of future evolution of Functional Railway System Architecture.

Mixed-Criticality Cyber-Physical Systems (MCCPS) deployed in critical domains like automotive and railway are starting to use Over The Air Software Updates (OTASU) for functionality improvement, bug fixing, and solving security vulnerabilities (among others). But, OTASU entails several difficulties: 1) Safety including non-functional properties like real-time, functional safety, and energy-efficiency. 2) Security. OTASU creates entry points for hackers 3) Availability. During updates the system is not available. While this is just inconvenient for mainstream devices, this is not acceptable for critical MCCPS that must remain active during operation. Additionally, computing performance needs are bigger and therefore complex hardware platforms based on multicore processors and accelerators are used in MCCPS. Such complex hardware platforms, software applications are subject to intricate dependences in their functional and non-functional behaviour. For facing these two trends in MCCPS: OTASU and complex hardware platforms, that entails relevant research challenges, the UP2DATE project propose: a new software paradigm for SAfety and SEcurity (SASE) software updates for intelligent and resource intensive MCCPS, promoting a safety and security concept that builds around composability and modularity as main properties to enable a dynamic (post-deployment) validation of SASE properties. A high quality and complementary consortium comprising knowledge generators (IKL, BSC and OFFIS) plus technology integrators (IAV and TTA) and two end uses from the automotive and railway sector (MM and CAF), will be able to test in two uses cases a new software architecture that will enable the runtime deployment of new (mixed-criticality) applications remotely (patching existing functions or extending the functionality) in heterogeneous computing platforms. The total budget foreseen for this research project is around €3.8M.

IN2RAIL is to set the foundations for a resilient, consistent, cost-efficient, high capacity European network by delivering important building blocks that unlock the innovation potential that exists in SHIFT2RAIL: innovative technologies will be explored and resulting concepts embedded in a systems framework where infrastructure, information management, maintenance techniques, energy, and engineering are integrated, optimised, shared and exploited. IN2RAIL will make advances towards SHIFT2RAIL objectives: enhancing the existing capacity fulfilling user demand; increasing the reliability delivering better and consistent quality of service; reducing the LCC increasing competitiveness of the EU rail system. To achieve the above, a holistic approach covering Smart Infrastructures, Intelligent Mobility Management (I2M)and Rail Power Supply and Energy Management will be applied. Smart Infrastructure addresses the fundamental design of critical assets - switches and crossings and tracks. It will research components capable of meeting future railway demands and will utilise modern technologies in the process. Risk and condition-based LEAN approaches to optimise RAMS and LCC in asset maintenance activities will be created to tackle the root causes of degradation. I2M researches automated, interoperable and inter-connected advanced traffic management systems; scalable and upgradable systems, utilising standardised products and interfaces, enabling easy migration from legacy systems; the wealth of data and information on assets and traffic status; information management systems adding the capability of nowcasting and forecasting of critical asset statuses. Rail Power Supply and Energy Management create solutions to improve the energy performance of the railway system. Research on new power systems characterised by reduced losses and capable of balancing energy demands, along with innovative energy management systems enabling accurate and precise estimates of energy flows.