@inproceedings{64115, author = {{Awais, Muhammad and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{2022 IFIP/IEEE 30th International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI-SoC)}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Automated Framework for Fast Synthesis of Approximate Hardware Accelerators}}}, doi = {{10.1109/vlsi-soc54400.2022.9939606}}, year = {{2022}}, } @phdthesis{26746, abstract = {{Previous research in proof-carrying hardware has established the feasibility and utility of the approach, and provided a concrete solution for employing it for the certification of functional equivalence checking against a specification, but fell short in connecting it to state-of-the-art formal verification insights, methods and tools. Due to the immense complexity of modern circuits, and verification challenges such as the state explosion problem for sequential circuits, this restriction of readily-available verification solutions severely limited the applicability of the approach in wider contexts. This thesis closes the gap between the PCH approach and current advances in formal hardware verification, provides methods and tools to express and certify a wide range of circuit properties, both functional and non-functional, and presents for the first time prototypes in which circuits that are implemented on actual reconfigurable hardware are verified with PCH methods. Using these results, designers can now apply PCH to establish trust in more complex circuits, by using more diverse properties which they can express using modern, efficient property specification techniques.}}, author = {{Wiersema, Tobias}}, keywords = {{Proof-Carrying Hardware, Formal Verification, Sequential Circuits, Non-Functional Properties, Functional Properties}}, pages = {{293}}, publisher = {{Paderborn University}}, title = {{{Guaranteeing Properties of Reconfigurable Hardware Circuits with Proof-Carrying Hardware}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @article{29150, abstract = {{Robotics applications process large amounts of data in real time and require compute platforms that provide high performance and energy efficiency. FPGAs are well suited for many of these applications, but there is a reluctance in the robotics community to use hardware acceleration due to increased design complexity and a lack of consistent programming models across the software/hardware boundary. In this article, we present ReconROS, a framework that integrates the widely used robot operating system (ROS) with ReconOS, which features multithreaded programming of hardware and software threads for reconfigurable computers. This unique combination gives ROS 2 developers the flexibility to transparently accelerate parts of their robotics applications in hardware. We elaborate on the architecture and the design flow for ReconROS and report on a set of experiments that underline the feasibility and flexibility of our approach.}}, author = {{Lienen, Christian and Platzner, Marco}}, issn = {{1936-7406}}, journal = {{ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems}}, pages = {{1--20}}, title = {{{Design of Distributed Reconfigurable Robotics Systems with ReconROS}}}, doi = {{10.1145/3494571}}, year = {{2021}}, } @misc{29151, abstract = {{Automation becomes a vital part in the High-Performance computing system in situational dynamics to take the decisions on the fly. Heterogeneous compute nodes consist of computing resources such as CPU, GPU and FPGA and are the important components of the high-performance computing system that can adapt the automation to achieve the given goal. While implanting automation in the computing resources, management of the resources is one of the essential aspects that need to be taken care of. Tasks are continuously executed on the resources using its unique characteristics. Effective scheduling is essential to make the best use of the characteristics provided by each resource. Scheduling enables the execution of each task by allocating resources so that they take advantage of all the characteristics of the compute resources. Various scheduling heuristics can be used to create effective scheduling, which might require the execution time to schedule the task efficiently. Providing actual execution time is not possible in many cases; hence we can provide the estimations for the actual execution time . The purpose of this master's thesis is to design a predictive model or system that estimates the execution time required to execute tasks using historical execution time data on the heterogeneous compute nodes. In this thesis, regression techniques(SGD Regressor, Passive-Aggressive Regressor, MLP Regressor, and XCSF Regressor) are compared in terms of their prediction accuracy in order to determine which technique produces reliable predictions for the execution time. These estimations must be generated in an online learning environment in which data points arrive in any sequence, one by one, and the regression model must learn from them. After evaluating the regression algorithms, it is seen that the XCSF regressor provides the highest overall prediction accuracy for the supplied data sets. The regression technique's parameters also play a significant role in achieving an acceptable prediction accuracy. As a remark, when using online learning in regression analysis, the accuracy depends upon both the order of sequential data points that are coming to train the model and the parameter configuration for each regression technique.}}, author = {{Kashikar, Chinmay}}, publisher = {{Paderborn University}}, title = {{{A Comparison of Machine Learning Techniques for the On-line Characterization of Tasks Executed on Heterogeneous Compute Nodes}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{21610, author = {{Awais, Muhammad and Ghasemzadeh Mohammadi, Hassan and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{Proceedings of the ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI) 2021}}, location = {{Virtual}}, pages = {{27--32}}, publisher = {{ACM}}, title = {{{LDAX: A Learning-based Fast Design Space Exploration Framework for Approximate Circuit Synthesis}}}, doi = {{https://doi.org/10.1145/3453688.3461506}}, year = {{2021}}, } @misc{22216, author = {{Rehnen, Jakob Werner}}, title = {{{Decomposition of Arithmetic Components for the Approximate Circuit Synthesis with EvoApproxLib}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{22309, abstract = {{Approximate computing (AC) has acquired significant maturity in recent years as a promising approach to obtain energy and area-efficient hardware. Automated approximate accelerator synthesis involves a great deal of complexity on the size of design space which exponentially grows with the number of possible approximations. Design space exploration of approximate accelerator synthesis is usually targeted via heuristic-based search methods. The majority of existing frameworks prune a large part of the design space using a greedy-based approach to keep the problem tractable. Therefore, they result in inferior solutions since many potential solutions are neglected in the pruning process without the possibility of backtracking of removed approximate instances. In this paper, we address the aforementioned issue by adopting Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), as an efficient stochastic learning-based search algorithm, in the context of automated synthesis of approximate accelerators. This enables the synthesis frameworks to deeply subsamples the design space of approximate accelerator synthesis toward most promising approximate instances based on the required performance goals, i.e., power consumption, area, or/and delay. We investigated the challenges of providing an efficient open-source framework that benefits analytical and search-based approximation techniques simultaneously to both speed up the synthesis runtime and improve the quality of obtained results. Besides, we studied the utilization of machine learning algorithms to improve the performance of several critical steps, i.e., accelerator quality testing, in the synthesis framework. The proposed framework can help the community to rapidly generate efficient approximate accelerators in a reasonable runtime.}}, author = {{Awais, Muhammad and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{Proceedings of IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI}}, keywords = {{Approximate computing, Design space exploration, Accelerator synthesis}}, location = {{Tampa, Florida USA (Virtual)}}, pages = {{384--389}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{MCTS-Based Synthesis Towards Efficient Approximate Accelerators}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @misc{22483, abstract = {{This bachelor thesis presents a C/C++ implementation of the XCS algorithm for an embedded system and profiling results concerning the execution time of the functions. These are then analyzed in relation to the input characteristics of the examined learning environments and compared with related work. Three main conclusions can be drawn from the measured results. First, the maximum size of the population of the classifiers influences the runtime of the genetic algorithm; second, the size of the input space has a direct effect on the execution time of the matching function; and last, a larger action space results in a longer runtime generating the prediction for the possible actions. The dependencies identified here can serve to optimize the computational efficiency and make XCS more suitable for embedded systems.}}, author = {{Brede, Mathis}}, publisher = {{Paderborn University}}, title = {{{Implementation and Profiling of XCS in the Context of Embedded Systems}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{21953, author = {{Witschen, Linus Matthias and Wiersema, Tobias and Raeisi Nafchi, Masood and Bockhorn, Arne and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{Proceedings of International Symposium on Applied Reconfigurable Computing (ARC'21)}}, editor = {{Hannig, Frank and Derrien, Steven and Diniz, Pedro and Chillet, Daniel}}, location = {{Virtual conference}}, publisher = {{Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science}}, title = {{{Timing Optimization for Virtual FPGA Configurations}}}, doi = {{10.1007/978-3-030-79025-7_4}}, year = {{2021}}, } @article{30906, abstract = {{Abstract Background Hand amputation can have a truly debilitating impact on the life of the affected person. A multifunctional myoelectric prosthesis controlled using pattern classification can be used to restore some of the lost motor abilities. However, learning to control an advanced prosthesis can be a challenging task, but virtual and augmented reality (AR) provide means to create an engaging and motivating training. Methods In this study, we present a novel training framework that integrates virtual elements within a real scene (AR) while allowing the view from the first-person perspective. The framework was evaluated in 13 able-bodied subjects and a limb-deficient person divided into intervention (IG) and control (CG) groups. The IG received training by performing simulated clothespin task and both groups conducted a pre- and posttest with a real prosthesis. When training with the AR, the subjects received visual feedback on the generated grasping force. The main outcome measure was the number of pins that were successfully transferred within 20 min (task duration), while the number of dropped and broken pins were also registered. The participants were asked to score the difficulty of the real task (posttest), fun-factor and motivation, as well as the utility of the feedback. Results The performance (median/interquartile range) consistently increased during the training sessions (4/3 to 22/4). While the results were similar for the two groups in the pretest, the performance improved in the posttest only in IG. In addition, the subjects in IG transferred significantly more pins (28/10.5 versus 14.5/11), and dropped (1/2.5 versus 3.5/2) and broke (5/3.8 versus 14.5/9) significantly fewer pins in the posttest compared to CG. The participants in IG assigned (mean ± std) significantly lower scores to the difficulty compared to CG (5.2 ± 1.9 versus 7.1 ± 0.9), and they highly rated the fun factor (8.7 ± 1.3) and usefulness of feedback (8.5 ± 1.7). Conclusion The results demonstrated that the proposed AR system allows for the transfer of skills from the simulated to the real task while providing a positive user experience. The present study demonstrates the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed AR framework. Importantly, the developed system is open source and available for download and further development. }}, author = {{Boschmann, Alexander and Neuhaus, Dorothee and Vogt, Sarah and Kaltschmidt, Christian and Platzner, Marco and Dosen, Strahinja}}, issn = {{1743-0003}}, journal = {{Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation}}, keywords = {{Health Informatics, Rehabilitation}}, number = {{1}}, publisher = {{Springer Science and Business Media LLC}}, title = {{{Immersive augmented reality system for the training of pattern classification control with a myoelectric prosthesis}}}, doi = {{10.1186/s12984-021-00822-6}}, volume = {{18}}, year = {{2021}}, } @article{30907, author = {{Rodriguez, Alfonso and Otero, Andres and Platzner, Marco and De la Torre, Eduardo}}, issn = {{0018-9340}}, journal = {{IEEE Transactions on Computers}}, keywords = {{Computational Theory and Mathematics, Hardware and Architecture, Theoretical Computer Science, Software}}, pages = {{1--1}}, publisher = {{Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)}}, title = {{{Exploiting Hardware-Based Data-Parallel and Multithreading Models for Smart Edge Computing in Reconfigurable FPGAs}}}, doi = {{10.1109/tc.2021.3107196}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{29137, author = {{Hansmeier, Tim}}, booktitle = {{HEART '21: Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies}}, location = {{Online}}, publisher = {{Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)}}, title = {{{Self-aware Operation of Heterogeneous Compute Nodes using the Learning Classifier System XCS}}}, doi = {{10.1145/3468044.3468055}}, year = {{2021}}, } @misc{29540, abstract = {{Autonomous mobile robots are becoming increasingly more capable and widespread. Reliable Obstacle avoidance is an integral part of autonomous navigation. This involves real time interpretation and processing of a complex environment. Strict time and energy constraints of a mobile autonomous system make efficient computation extremely desirable. The benefits of employing Hardware/Software co-designed applications are obvious and significant. Hardware accelerators are used for efficient processing of the algorithms by exploiting parallelism. FPGAs are a class of hardware accelerators, which can contain hundreds of small execution units, and can be used for Hardware/Software co-designed application. However, there is a reluctance when it comes to adoption of these devices in well established application domains, such as Robotics, due to a steep learning curve needed for FPGA application design. ReconROS has successfully bridged the gap between robotic and FPGA application development, by providing an intuitive, common development platform for robotic application development for FPGA. It does so by integrating Robotics Operating System(ROS) which is an industry and academia standard for robotics application development, with ReconOS, an operating system for re-configurable hardware. In this thesis an obstacle avoidance system is designed and implemented for an autonomous vehicle using ReconROS. The objectives of the thesis is to demonstrate and explore ReconROS integration within the ROS ecosystem and explore the design process within ReconROS framework, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of Hardware Acceleration in Robotics, by analysing the resulting architectures for Latency and Power Consumption.}}, author = {{Sheikh, Muhammad Aamir}}, publisher = {{Paderborn University}}, title = {{{Design and Implementation of a ReconROS-based Obstacle Avoidance System}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @unpublished{22764, abstract = {{Robotics applications process large amounts of data in real-time and require compute platforms that provide high performance and energy-efficiency. FPGAs are well-suited for many of these applications, but there is a reluctance in the robotics community to use hardware acceleration due to increased design complexity and a lack of consistent programming models across the software/hardware boundary. In this paper we present ReconROS, a framework that integrates the widely-used robot operating system (ROS) with ReconOS, which features multithreaded programming of hardware and software threads for reconfigurable computers. This unique combination gives ROS2 developers the flexibility to transparently accelerate parts of their robotics applications in hardware. We elaborate on the architecture and the design flow for ReconROS and report on a set of experiments that underline the feasibility and flexibility of our approach.}}, author = {{Lienen, Christian and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{arXiv:2107.07208}}, pages = {{19}}, title = {{{Design of Distributed Reconfigurable Robotics Systems with ReconROS}}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{21813, author = {{Hansmeier, Tim and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{GECCO '21: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion}}, isbn = {{978-1-4503-8351-6}}, location = {{Lille, France}}, pages = {{1639–1647}}, publisher = {{Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)}}, title = {{{An Experimental Comparison of Explore/Exploit Strategies for the Learning Classifier System XCS}}}, doi = {{10.1145/3449726.3463159}}, year = {{2021}}, } @article{27841, abstract = {{Verification of software and processor hardware usually proceeds separately, software analysis relying on the correctness of processors executing machine instructions. This assumption is valid as long as the software runs on standard CPUs that have been extensively validated and are in wide use. However, for processors exploiting custom instruction set extensions to meet performance and energy constraints the validation might be less extensive, challenging the correctness assumption. In this paper we present a novel formal approach for hardware/software co-verification targeting processors with custom instruction set extensions. We detail two different approaches for checking whether the hardware fulfills the requirements expected by the software analysis. The approaches are designed to explore a trade-off between generality of the verification and computational effort. Then, we describe the integration of software and hardware analyses for both techniques and describe a fully automated tool chain implementing the approaches. Finally, we demonstrate and compare the two approaches on example source code with custom instructions, using state-of-the-art software analysis and hardware verification techniques.}}, author = {{Jakobs, Marie-Christine and Pauck, Felix and Platzner, Marco and Wehrheim, Heike and Wiersema, Tobias}}, journal = {{IEEE Access}}, keywords = {{Software Analysis, Abstract Interpretation, Custom Instruction, Hardware Verification}}, publisher = {{IEEE}}, title = {{{Software/Hardware Co-Verification for Custom Instruction Set Processors}}}, doi = {{10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3131213}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{29138, author = {{Ahmed, Qazi Arbab}}, booktitle = {{2021 IFIP/IEEE 29th International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI-SoC)}}, title = {{{Hardware Trojans in Reconfigurable Computing}}}, doi = {{10.1109/vlsi-soc53125.2021.9606974}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{20681, abstract = {{The battle of developing hardware Trojans and corresponding countermeasures has taken adversaries towards ingenious ways of compromising hardware designs by circumventing even advanced testing and verification methods. Besides conventional methods of inserting Trojans into a design by a malicious entity, the design flow for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) can also be surreptitiously compromised to assist the attacker to perform a successful malfunctioning or information leakage attack. The advanced stealthy malicious look-up-table (LUT) attack activates a Trojan only when generating the FPGA bitstream and can thus not be detected by register transfer and gate level testing and verification. However, also this attack was recently revealed by a bitstream-level proof-carrying hardware (PCH) approach. In this paper, we present a novel attack that leverages malicious routing of the inserted Trojan circuit to acquire a dormant state even in the generated and transmitted bitstream. The Trojan's payload is connected to primary inputs/outputs of the FPGA via a programmable interconnect point (PIP). The Trojan is detached from inputs/outputs during place-and-route and re-connected only when the FPGA is being programmed, thus activating the Trojan circuit without any need for a trigger logic. Since the Trojan is injected in a post-synthesis step and remains unconnected in the bitstream, the presented attack can currently neither be prevented by conventional testing and verification methods nor by recent bitstream-level verification techniques.}}, author = {{Ahmed, Qazi Arbab and Wiersema, Tobias and Platzner, Marco}}, booktitle = {{2021 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE)}}, location = {{Alpexpo | Grenoble, France}}, publisher = {{2021 Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE)}}, title = {{{Malicious Routing: Circumventing Bitstream-level Verification for FPGAs}}}, doi = {{10.23919/DATE51398.2021.9474026}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{30909, author = {{Clausing, Lennart}}, booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Highly Efficient Accelerators and Reconfigurable Technologies}}, publisher = {{ACM}}, title = {{{ReconOS64: High-Performance Embedded Computing for Industrial Analytics on a Reconfigurable System-on-Chip}}}, doi = {{10.1145/3468044.3468056}}, year = {{2021}}, } @inproceedings{30908, author = {{Ghasemzadeh Mohammadi, Hassan and Jentzsch, Felix and Kuschel, Maurice and Arshad, Rahil and Rautmare, Sneha and Manjunatha, Suraj and Platzner, Marco and Boschmann, Alexander and Schollbach, Dirk }}, booktitle = {{ Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases}}, publisher = {{Springer}}, title = {{{FLight: FPGA Acceleration of Lightweight DNN Model Inference in Industrial Analytics}}}, doi = {{https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93736-2_27}}, year = {{2021}}, }