Safe Virtual Machine for C in less than 3 KiBytes

Altreonic is using a formalised approach to embedded software engineering. One recent example is Altreonic’s novel Safe Virtual Machine for C (SVM). Tuned to the needs of embedded systems it allows to dynamically download C compiled binary code to OpenComRTOS nodes independently of the target processor. Yet, the Virtual machine requires less than 3 KiBytes of program memory (measured on an ARM Cortex M3). Every processing node in an OpenComRTOS supported system can host multiple Safe Virtual Machine tasks, each of which can use the native kernel services and hence communicate system wide. SVM tasks can also be unloaded, updated at runtime as well as moved between networked OpenComRTOS nodes. A next release of the Safe Virtual Machine can verify memory accesses and catch boundary violations and numerical exceptions at runtime. The VM itself was generated in ANSI C from a higher level description. This has the benefit of correctness and allows to enhance the instruction set with little overhead. In addition the VM can be redefined using a different instruction set to address different functional needs. As the VM is based on the ARM Thumb-1 instruction set, it is also possible to execute the binary images in native mode on most of the ARM processors. While VM tasks execute slower than native code, the performance is adequate given the intended range of applications. Typical applications for the SVM are remote diagnostics, fail safe & fault tolerant control, and processor independent programming.