A Framework and Protocol for Dynamic Management of Fault Tolerant Systems in Harsh Environments

Robots can be used to deal with hazardous materials like nuclear waste. Unfortunately, electronic components are also susceptible to radiation effects. Current proposals to tackle this issue solve only parts of the problems for the specific scenarios and the specific types of radiation. At the same time, current computational devices should provide run-time capabilities to monitor and adapt to different situations. In this paper, we target a possible solution presenting a framework which provides the flexibility to employ fault-tolerant techniques on distributed systems. As proof of concept, we target a fault-tolerant technique to extend the operating time of systems in harsh environments. Results show a very low overhead, of few microseconds, to execute a majority voter with replicated tasks.

I. Introduction

Nuclear power plants have been used for the last six decades in many European countries and across the world. Due to the nature of nuclear power generation, the process of transforming radioactive material into energy also creates a by product, named radioactive waste. Unfortunately, no country has opened a permanent storage site for such hazardous materials so far. Spent nuclear fuel and other contaminated materials are stockpiled in temporary locations around Europe and the world, sometimes in facilities open to air which might lead to contamination. In the United Kingdom the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) [1], for example, estimates that the process to clean up 17 nuclear sites may take around 120 years, with estimated costs of hundreds of billions sterling pounds.