Course details

Fault Tolerant Systems

SPP Acad. year 2026/2027 Summer semester 5 credits

Current academic year

Principles of fault tolerance, structures and techniques for increasing the fault tolerance of systems. Codes for control and correction of information. Linear block codes. Sparse parity codes. Matrix description of codes. Galois fields. Cyclic codes. BCH and RS codes. Codes for Flash memories and CDROM. Quantum computing and error correction in quantum systems.

Guarantor

Bidlo Michal, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)

Course coordinator

Vašíček Zdeněk, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)

Language of instruction

Czech

Completion

Credit+Examination (written)

Time span

  • 26 hrs lectures
  • 26 hrs projects

Assessment points

  • 70 pts final exam
  • 30 pts projects

Department

Department of Computer Systems (UPSY)

Lecturer

Bidlo Michal, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)

Instructor

Bidlo Michal, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DCSY)
Drábek Vladimír, doc. Ing., CSc.

Learning objectives

To inform the students about different types of redundancy and its application for the design of computer systems being able to function correctly even under presence of faults or errors in data.
Skills to achieve fault tolerance using hardware and software approaches.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Basics of linear algebra and discrete mathematics, basics of digital system design.

Study literature

  • Lin, S., Costello, D.J.: Error Control Coding: Fundamentals and Applications, 2. vyd., PEARSON, 2010
  • Koren, I., Krishna, C. M.: Fault-Tolerant Systems, 2. vyd., Morgan Kaufmann, 2020
  • Sanvicente, E.: Understanding Error Control Coding. Springer, 2019
  • Dumas, J.-G., Roch, J.-L., Tannier, E., Varrette, S.: Foundations of Coding: Compression, Encryption, Error Correction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
  • Jiang, Y.: A Practical Guide to Error-Control Coding Using MATLAB. Artech House, 2010

Fundamental literature

  • Lin, S., Costello, D.J.: Error Control Coding: Fundamentals and Applications, 2. vyd., PEARSON, 2010
  • Koren, I., Krishna, C. M.: Fault-Tolerant Systems, 2. vyd., Morgan Kaufmann, 2020
  • Sanvicente, E.: Understanding Error Control Coding. Springer, 2019
  • Dumas, J.-G., Roch, J.-L., Tannier, E., Varrette, S.: Foundations of Coding: Compression, Encryption, Error Correction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
  • Jiang, Y.: A Practical Guide to Error-Control Coding Using MATLAB. Artech House, 2010

Syllabus of lectures

  1. Introduction to Fault-Tolerant Systems (FTS).
  2. Basic principles of FTS. Means for the dependability system analysis.
  3. Increasing system dependability (1): static, dynamic and time redundancy.
  4. Increasing system dependability (2): watchdogs, hybrid systems, Markov models.
  5. Information redundancy: Introduction to error-correcting codes. Parity codes, Berger code.
  6. Linear Block Codes: Hamming codes, Low-Density Parity Codes.
  7. Algebra for error-correcting codes (1): matrix description of codes.
  8. Algebra for error-correcting codes (2): Galois fields.
  9. Cyclic codes: CRC, circuit realisation of code operations.
  10. Advanced cyclic codes: BCH codes, Reed-Solomon codes.
  11. Quantum computing basics. Fault-tolerance in quantum computing.
  12. Basic principles of fault-tolerant implementation of quantum circuits.
  13. Practical demonstration of programming and simulation of quantum circuits.

Syllabus - others, projects and individual work of students

Individual project assignment based usually on studying selected topic and creating a presentation of relevant ideas within approximately 25 minutes.

Progress assessment

Project processing, presentation and obtaining at least 10 points for the admission to final exam. To pass the final exam with obtaining at least 50 points in sum from the evaluated activities of the course. 

Course inclusion in study plans

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