Automatic Data Redundancy in Safety-Critical Applications Using Trait-Based Code Transformation

The paper describes a systematic approach for the automatic introduction of data redundancy in a safety-critical application. The transformations aim to make the program capable of detecting potential soft errors caused by transient faults that may alter the program's data. The approach is based on an automated system that leverages the polymorphism features offered by the Rust programming language. Rust is focused on speed, safety, and concurrency, and it also provides powerful high-level abstractions at zero cost. The paper proposes a technique for hardening source code by creating redundant code through an automatic data redundancy system, achieved by defining a trait that enables data duplication and the detection of potential errors. The use of a trait allows the compiler to generate optimized code, without introducing abstraction-related overhead and with minimal programmer effort for boilerplate code generation. Preliminary experimental results are presented, showing the fault coverage achieved by the method, as well as some data related to the performance overhead and the increase in code size.