ConceptOS: A Micro-Kernel Approach to Firmware Updates of Always-On Resource-Constrained Hubris-Based IoT Systems

This article investigates and validates an approach to perform component-level updates with live state transfer in an existing embedded operating system for flash-based microcontrollers. The resulting proof of concept, called ConceptOS, allows live component updates and requires 21% less space than a conventional update with an overhead comparable to a single page-erase time. At the same time, we reduced the system unavailability by 53.8%. This article will describe the relevant state-of-the-art, background information, and the proposed approach in terms of memory organization, compile-time representation, and component delivery protocol. Experiments will compare the actual memory requirements and overhead with respect to a conventional OTA approach.