IMMORTAL · Project

Self-Healing Electronics That Detect and Fix Hardware Faults Before Systems Crash

digitalTestedTRL 5

h2020-immortal.eu

Imagine your car's computer or a satellite's brain suddenly hits a glitch — a tiny chip defect, a cosmic ray, or just old age wearing down the circuits. Right now, finding and fixing those faults takes forever and costs a fortune. IMMORTAL built a toolkit that works across every layer of an electronic system — from the individual transistor up to the software — to automatically spot faults, figure out exactly where they are, and recover before anything goes wrong. Think of it like giving your electronics a built-in immune system that catches problems the way your body fights off a cold.

By the numbers

consortium partners from academia and industry

countries represented (AT, DE, EE, IL, NL)

working demonstrators (FPGA and silicon)

industrial partners in the consortium

total project deliverables produced

system layers covered (device, circuit, network, firmware, software)

fault types addressed (design bugs, wear-out, environmental effects)

The business problem

What needed solving

Electronic systems in satellites, cars, and industrial equipment fail unpredictably due to chip aging, design flaws, and environmental interference. Finding the root cause of these faults across multiple system layers — from transistors to software — is slow, expensive, and often happens only after a costly failure. Companies need a way to automatically detect, locate, and recover from faults before they cause downtime or safety incidents.

The solution

What was built

The project delivered an integrated FPGA demonstrator and a silicon demonstrator for fault management and mixed-signal reliability verification. Across 20 deliverables, the team built a cross-layer modeling and debug toolkit covering device, circuit, network, firmware, and software layers — validated on a satellite on-board computer.

Audience

Who needs this

Satellite and space electronics manufacturers needing radiation-hardened fault toleranceAutomotive Tier-1 suppliers building safety-critical ECUs for autonomous vehiclesIndustrial IoT and edge computing companies with reliability requirementsTelecom equipment makers managing uptime in distributed network hardwareFPGA design houses building dependable embedded systems

Business applications

Who can put this to work

Satellite & Space Electronics

enterprise

Target: Satellite manufacturers and space system integrators

If you are a satellite manufacturer dealing with radiation-induced faults and component aging in orbit — this project developed an FPGA-based fault management system demonstrated on a satellite on-board computer that enables ultra-fast fault detection, isolation, and recovery. The toolkit was validated across device, circuit, and software layers, meaning fewer mission-critical failures in environments where you cannot send a repair technician.

Automotive Electronics

enterprise

Target: Automotive Tier-1 suppliers and OEMs building autonomous driving systems

If you are an automotive electronics supplier dealing with reliability requirements for safety-critical control units — this project built a cross-layer fault model covering design bugs, wear-out, and environmental effects in a uniform way. With 2 working silicon and FPGA demonstrators proving the concept, the tools can help you reduce development time and maintenance costs for dependable in-vehicle cyber-physical systems.

Industrial Automation & Control

mid-size

Target: Manufacturers of programmable logic controllers and industrial IoT edge devices

If you are an industrial control systems maker dealing with unplanned downtime from hardware faults in factory floor equipment — this project created automated debug and reliable design tools for many-core networked architectures. The fault management infrastructure detects, isolates, and recovers from faults across 5 system layers, which can extend the effective lifetime of your deployed industrial controllers and reduce field maintenance costs.

Frequently asked

Quick answers

What would it cost to license or integrate these tools into our design flow?

The project did not publish licensing terms or pricing. As a publicly funded Research and Innovation Action, the core IP is shared among 7 consortium partners across 5 countries. You would need to negotiate licensing directly with the consortium — SciTransfer can facilitate that introduction.

Can this work at industrial scale for mass-produced electronics?

The project demonstrated results on both FPGA and silicon prototypes, which are standard building blocks for scalable electronics. The satellite on-board computer use case proves it works in a real-world architecture. Scaling to high-volume automotive or telecom applications would require further engineering, but the foundations are production-relevant.

Who owns the intellectual property and how can we access it?

IP is distributed among the 7 consortium partners, coordinated by Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia. With 3 industrial partners (including 2 SMEs) involved, some results may already be moving toward commercial products. Contact the coordinator to discuss licensing or collaboration options.

Does this meet safety certification requirements for automotive or avionics?

The project targeted dependable cyber-physical systems and addressed fault detection, isolation, and recovery — key requirements in safety standards like ISO 26262 (automotive) and DO-254 (avionics). However, formal certification was not part of the project scope. Based on available project data, additional certification work would be needed for regulated industries.

How long would it take to integrate this into our existing design environment?

The project ran for 3 years (2015-2018) and produced 20 deliverables including the integrated tool environment. Since the tools span from device-level to software-level modeling, integration complexity depends on which layers you need. The FPGA demonstrator suggests the fault management components can be deployed on standard programmable hardware relatively quickly.

What types of faults can this actually catch?

The system handles three fundamentally different fault sources: design bugs, wear-out degradation, and environmental effects (like radiation in space or electromagnetic interference). It covers these across digital and analogue devices, circuits, network architecture, firmware, and software layers — giving complete visibility into where problems originate.

Consortium

Who built it

The IMMORTAL consortium brings together 7 partners from 5 countries (Austria, Germany, Estonia, Israel, Netherlands), with a healthy 43% industry ratio — 3 industrial players alongside 3 universities and 1 research organization. The project is coordinated by Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia, a recognized hub for electronics and embedded systems research. Having 2 SMEs in the mix suggests the results are not purely academic; smaller companies invested effort because they see commercial potential. The geographic spread across both EU and associated countries (Israel) gives the results broad applicability, while the balanced academic-industrial split means the tools were built with both scientific rigor and practical usability in mind.

TALLINNA TEHNIKAÜLIKOOLCoordinator · EE
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET GRAZparticipant · AT
UNIVERSITEIT TWENTEparticipant · NL
DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR LUFT - UND RAUMFAHRT EVparticipant · DE
IBM ISRAEL - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LTDparticipant · IL
RECORE SYSTEMS BVparticipant · NL

How to reach the team

Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia) — contact via SciTransfer for a warm introduction to the project coordinator and industrial partners.

Order a report on this consortium See TALLINNA TEHNIKAÜLIKOOL profile →

Next steps

Talk to the team behind this work.

Want to explore how IMMORTAL's fault management tools could improve your product reliability? SciTransfer can arrange a direct introduction to the right consortium partner for your use case.

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