Resources for memory management in embedded application

Question

How should I manage memory in my mission critical embedded application?

I found some articles with google, but couldn't pinpoint a really useful practical guide.

The DO-178b forbids dynamic memory allocations, but how will you manage the memory then? Preallocate everything in advance and send a pointer to each function that needs allocation? Allocate it on the stack? Use a global static allocator (but then it's very similar to dynamic allocation)?

Answers can be of the form of regular answer, reference to a resource, or reference to good opensource embedded system for example.

clarification: The issue here is not whether or not memory management is availible for the embedded system. But what is a good design for an embedded system, to maximize reliability.

I don't understand why statically preallocating a buffer pool, and dynamically getting and dropping it, is different from dynamically allocating memory.

Answer 1

As someone who has dealt with embedded systems, though not to such rigor so far (I have read DO-178B, though):

• If you look at the u-boot bootloader, a lot is done with a globally placed structure. Depending on your exact application, you may be able to get away with a global structure and stack. Of course, there are re-entrancy and related issues there that don't really apply to a bootloader but might for you.
• Preallocate, preallocate, preallocate. If you can at design-time bind the size of an array/list structure/etc, declare it as a global (or static global -- look Ma, encapsulation).
• The stack is very useful, use it where needed -- but be careful, as it can be easy to keep allocating off of it until you have no stack space left. Some code I once found myself debugging would allocate 1k buffers for string management in multiple functions...occasionally, the usage of the buffers would hit another program's stack space, as the default stack size was 4k.
• The buffer pool case may depend on exactly how it's implemented. If you know you need to pass around fixed-size buffers of a size known at compile time, dealing with a buffer pool is likely more easy to demonstrate correctness than a complete dynamic allocator. You just need to verify buffers cannot be lost, and validate your handling won't fail. There seem to be some good tips here: http://www.cotsjournalonline.com/articles/view/101217

Really, though, I think your answers might be found in joining http://www.do178site.com/

Answer 2

Allocating everything from stack is commonly done in embedded systems or elsewhere where the possibility of an allocation failing is unacceptable. I don't know what DO-178b is, but if the problem is that malloc is not available on your platform, you can also implement it yourself (implementing your own heap), but this still may lead to an allocation failing when you run out of space, of course.

Answer 3

Real-time, long running, mission critical systems should not dynamically allocate and free memory from heap. If you need and cannot design around it to then write your own allocated and fixed pool management scheme. Yes, allocated fixed ahead of time whenever possible. Anything else is asking for eventual trouble.

Answer 4

There's no way to be 100% sure.

You may look at FreeRTOS' memory allocators examples. Those use static pool, if i'm not mistaken.

Answer 5

You might find this question interesting as well, dynamic allocation is often prohibited in space hardened settings (actually, core memory is still useful there).

Typically, when malloc() is not available, I just use the stack. As Tronic said, the whole reason behind not using malloc() is that it can fail. If you are using a global static pool, it is conceivable that your internal malloc() implementation could be made fail proof.

It really, really, really depends on the task at hand and what the board is going to be exposed to.

Answer 6

Disclaimer: I've not worked specifically with DO-178b, but I have written software for certified systems.

On the certified systems for which I have been a developer, ...

1. Dynamic memory allocation was acceptable ONLY during the initialization phase.
2. Dynamic memory de-allocation was NEVER acceptable.

This left us with the following options ...

• Use statically allocated structures.
• Create a pool of structures and then get/release them from/back to the pool.
• For flexibility, we could dynamically allocate the size of the pools or number of structures during the initialization phase. However, once past that init phase, we were stuck with what we had.

Our company found that pools of structures and then get/releasing from/back into the pool was most useful. We were able to keep to the model, and keep things deterministic with minimal problems.

Hope that helps.

Answer 7

I've worked in a DO-178B environment (systems for airplanes). What I have understood, is that the main reason for not allowing dynamic allocation is mainly certification. Certification is done through tests (unitary, coverage, integration, ...). With those tests you have to prove that you the behavior of your program is 100% predictable, nearly to the point that the memory footprint of your process is the same from one execution to the next. As dynamic allocation is done on the heap (and can fail) you can not easily prove that (I imagine it should be possible if you master all the tools from the hardware to any piece of code written, but ...). You have not this problem with static allocation. That also why C++ was not used at this time in such environments. (it was about 15 years ago, that might have changed ...)

Practically, you have to write a lot of struct pools and allocation functions that guarantee that you have something deterministic. You can imagine a lot of solutions. The key is that you have to prove (with TONS of tests) a high level of deterministic behavior. It's easier to prove that your hand crafted developpement work deterministically that to prove that linux + gcc is deterministic in allocating memory.

Just my 2 cents. It was a long time ago, things might have changed, but concerning certification like DO-178B, the point is to prove your app will work the same any time in any context.