Software-based Memory Protection on OSEK/VDX- The KESO Multi-JVM

Electronic support functions pose the current major area of innovation in theautomotive environment. The number of ECUs has reached an upper boundarywith about 80 ECUs deployed in a well-equipped car. The industry aimsat consolidating the number of ECUs by shifting from a federated architectureto an integrated architecture. The integration of multiple applications onan ECU raises the need for isolation mechanisms that allow for a safecoexistance. The embedded Multi-JVM KESO is a purely software-based approachto provide memory protection through the use of the type-safe Javalanguage along with other isolation machanisms. KESO is based on anOSEK/VDX operating system the defacto standard in the automotive industryand compiles Java code to C-Code ahead-of-time which allows the use ofexisting compiler and analyzing tools. This work covers the Java interface tothe OSEK/VDX system services and a heap management strategy featuringlow-latency incremental garbage collection but also gives a general KESOoverview.