Linux for safety-critical systems: A survey
Markel Galarraga, Charles-Alexis Lefebvre, Jon Perez-Cerrolaza, Jose Antonio Pascual · Journal of Systems Architecture · 2025
Next-generation safety-critical systems, such as autonomous vehicles, are increasingly complex systems integrating high-performance computing devices, diverse software stacks, machine learning algorithms and software applications of different safety criticality. Industry and academia are showing growing interest in using Linux as a general-purpose operating system in these safety-critical systems due to its widespread adoption in embedded systems and critical domains (e.g., telecommunications, banking) and widespread support of computing devices, software stacks and machine learning software. However, meeting the requirements of safety standards, such as systematic error reduction techniques, random fault tolerance, and temporal and spatial independence, becomes a challenge. This is especially the case when integrating software applications of different safety criticality (mixed criticality). This literature survey examines works that propose, analyze and extend Linux for the development of safety-critical systems. We also identify the main challenges these works focus on. Finally, we also present an overview of the main industry efforts.