Leveraging Erlang's Fault Tolerance for Robust Space and IoT Systems with GRiSP

Talk 1

Leveraging Erlang's Fault Tolerance for Robust Space and IoT Systems with GRiSP

The talk will be given by Peer Stritzinger. Peer Stritzinger is the founder and the managing director of Peer Stritzinger GmbH which created GRiSP, a platform to run Erlang on small embedded systems and focusses on building Automotive, Railway and Industrial IoT applications and tries to use Erlang technology wherever useful. Participating in several EU funded research projects, he is trying to push the envelope for what can be done with Erlang and the other languages in the Ecosystem running on the BEAM (Erlang VM).

In the realm of space applications, the demands for fault tolerance, efficient distributed programming, and high productivity in software development are paramount. This talk delves into the advanced fault-tolerant capabilities of the Erlang programming language, exploring how these features make Erlang an exceptional choice for space and IoT systems development.

We will examine the integration of Erlang with the Real-Time Executive for Multiprocessor Systems (RTEMS) via the GRiSP platform, demonstrating how this synergy leverages Erlang’s fault-tolerant architecture and RTEMS’s reliable real-time operating system to meet the stringent requirements of space applications. The GRiSP platform showcases how Erlang's lightweight processes and message-passing model enable robust and scalable distributed systems, crucial for implementing complex communication protocols and maintaining consistent performance in distributed environments.
Particular attention will be given to the practical aspects of Erlang’s fault tolerance mechanisms, including process isolation, supervision trees, and hot code swapping. These features ensure that systems can automatically recover from failures and continue operating seamlessly, a necessity for the harsh and unpredictable conditions of space.
Furthermore, we will discuss the GRiSP2 and the forthcoming GRiSP nano evaluation boards, which facilitate the rapid prototyping and deployment of IoT systems. These tools empower developers to focus on application-specific challenges rather than low-level system management, significantly enhancing productivity.
By the end of this talk, attendees will have a deeper understanding of how Erlang’s fault-tolerant capabilities, combined with the GRiSP platform, provide a powerful toolkit for overcoming the unique challenges of space and IoT system development.

Talk 2

Ensuring Reliability: Hot Code Upgrades and Downgrades with HotCI

HotCI is a CI/CD tool that provides a robust way to reliably and semi-automatically test the correctness of hot code upgrades and downgrades. It also offers additional benefits such as static analysis, unit tests, automatic generation of the files needed for the upgrade and release build.

Alexandre Zenon is a computer science student from UCLouvain specializing in computer networks and cybersecurity. His interests include: programming languages, game development and embedded programming.

The meetup is going to happen on Tuesday June 20, 19h-21h in Louvain-la-Neuve, in theSainte Barbe building on the UCL campus, auditorium BARB00. We will be kindly hosted by Prof. van Roy and UCL.