FPGA Self-Repair using an Organic Embedded System Architecture

An Organic Embedded System (OES) architecture is developed for sustainable performance using SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), an Organic Computing (OC) observer/controller organization, and regeneration with Genetic Operators. Innovations include availability during online regeneration, aging and outlier driven repair assessment, and a uniform design for Autonomic Elements (AEs) despite the fact that they monitor different types of Functional Elements (FEs). Using logic circuits from the MCNC-91 benchmark set, availability during repair phases averaged 75.05%, 82.21%, and 65.21% for the z4ml, cm85a, and cm138a circuits respectively under stated conditions. In addition to simulation, the proposed OES architecture synthesized from HDL was prototyped on Xilinx Virtex II Pro FPGA device supporting partial reconfiguration to demonstrate the feasibility of OC approaches for intrinsic regeneration of the selected circuit. This research was supported in part by NASA Intelligent Systems NRA Contract NNA04CL07A.