• Published on 27 Jun 2017
• Project News

Project EMC2 achieved multi-core technology breakthrough

EMC2 – a multi-core technology breakthrough for almost every application domain

EMC2 started in 2014 as ARTEMIS-JU project, continued within the ECSEL-JU programme, and ended earlier this year, with amazing results. With 99 partners, EMC2 is one of the largest projects in the area of Embedded Intelligence in Europe. It was labelled as ARTEMIS Innovation Pilot Programme project, and is the largest AIPP to date. 

EMC2 finds solutions for dynamic adaptability in open systems. Embedded Multi-Core Systems for Mixed Criticality Applications in Dynamic and Changeable Real-Time Environments, or EMC2, enables mixed criticality multicore applications in real-time conditions, with scalability and utmost flexibility, full-scale deployment and management of integrated tool chains, through the entire lifecycle.

Lower development costs, quicker time to market
EMC2 is part of the European Embedded Systems industry strategy to maintain its lead by providing solutions for dynamic adaptability in open systems. A flexible Multi Processor System on Chip (MPSoC) architecture that can be tailored by middleware to the needs of a particular application domain will substantially reduce the non-recurring development costs and the time-to-market of new Embedded System applications and significantly cut the recurring cost of the respective products. The infrastructure’s applicability is demonstrated by six dedicated living labs from various application domains, including automotive, aerospace and communication, representing European major industry sectors.

Key markets
The targets met by the EMC2 project in the key European markets are:

• Automotive: reduction of 100+ heterogeneous ECU’s in a car by a factor 4 to 5, with resource guarantee for critical applications and full software flexibility to cut architecture cost and improve performance for control and detection algorithms using multicores.
• Avionics: internal and external monitoring and a hypervisor for multicores in safety-critical applications and software development, to facilitate certification processes.
• Space: introduction of reconfigurable self-healing architectures for image compression in the Space demonstrator for telecom and micro-satellite platforms.
• Industrial control and factory automation: including scalable unobstructed visual inspection, scalable secure solution, multi-radio indoor positioning and motion capable industrial drive.
• Medical Imaging: reduction of Magnetic Resonance Imaging need from three hardware systems to a single multi-core hardware system.
• Video surveillance for critical infrastructure: performance gain of a factor of 60 (1280 * 720 pixels)
• Seismic processing (Energy): automatically generated multicore C++ code that runs 2-60 times faster than serial MATLAB code.
• Internet of Things: Five use cases within the IoT domain where EMC2 helped to develop new functionalities

Strengthening European industry
This project covers the full range of open research issues from security and active diagnosis in MPSoCs, integrated resource management, internet integration of MPSoCs and appropriate tool environment. Driven by application needs, EMC2 has a strong focus on re-configurability and adaptability. The project is also in line with the reference designs and architectures concept promoted by ARTEMIS to provide solutions to key technical challenges – such as networking, security, robustness, diagnosis, maintenance, integrated resource management, self-organisation and, most notably, dynamic adjustments in changing systems. By making real, tangible contributions that support quantitative ARTEMIS targets, EMC2 is helping to strengthen the competitiveness of the European Embedded Systems industry.