Safe and Policy Oriented Secure Android-Based Industrial Embedded Control System

Abstract

Android is gaining popularity as the operating system of embedded systems and recent demands of its application on industrial control are steadily increasing. However, its feasibility is still in question due to two major drawbacks: safety and security. In particular, ensuring the safe operation of industrial control systems requires the system to be governed by stringent temporal constraints and should satisfy real-time requirements. In this sense, we explore the real-time characteristics of Xenomai to guarantee strict temporal deadlines, and provide a viable method integrating Android processes to real-time tasks. Security is another issue that affects safety due to the increased connectivity in industrial systems provoking a higher risk of cyber and hardware attacks. Herein, we adopted a hardware copy protection chip and enforced administrative security policies in the booting process and the Android application layer. These policies ensure that the developed system is protected from physical tampering and unwanted Android applications. The articulacy of the administrative policies is demonstrated through experiments. The developed embedded system is connected to an industrial EtherCAT motion device network exhibiting operability on an actual industrial application. Real-time performance was evaluated in terms of schedulability and responsiveness, which are critical in determining the safety and reliability of the control system.