Detecting Single Event Upsets in Embedded Software

Abstract

The past decade has seen explosive growth in the use of small satellites. Within this domain, there has been a growing trend to place more responsibility on the flight software (versus hardware) and an increasing adoption of consumer-grade microprocessors to satisfy this desire for increased processing capability while still minimizing size, weight, and power parameters. These consumer-grade processors, however, are more susceptible to cosmic radiation and the occurrence of single event upsets. In this paper, we examine software-centric checks to detect the occurrence of such upset events in modern microprocessors.