Hardware/Software Codesign

The current state of the art technology in integrated circuits allows the incorporation of multiple processor cores and memory arrays, in addition to application specific hardware, on a single substrate. As silicon technology has become more advanced, allowing the implementation of more complex designs, systems have begun to incorporate considerable amounts of embedded software [3]. Thus it becomes increasingly necessary for the system designers to have knowledge on both hardware and software to make efficient design tradeoffs. This is where hardware/software codesign comes into existence

UML-Based co-design framework for body sensor network applications

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

DIGITAL CO-CREATION Digitalization within Service Design : Transformation from analog thinking towards digital doing

The German automotive industry has accelerated its digital transformation as OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) moving from car manufacturers towards becoming mobility providers, striving for new mobility solutions like offering Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Self-Driving-System (SDS). OEMs focus on expanding their core product-driven businesses to access service-orientated business models, the transformation from ownership towards shared mobility. Considering internal and external factors, this requires a new set of expertise, capabilities and an underlying approach to fulfill the demands in the complexity of human-centered development and front- and backstage alignment within the organization. At the same time, Service Design as a practice has risen in attraction by industry, being recognized and increasingly requested for its integration in the functions and divisions of the organization. The scale of Service Design in influence and impact has reached professional practice, making its way from a trendy buzzword to professional practice of turning complex problems collaboratively into tangible solutions. It is seen as a powerful opportunity for combining Business, Human-Centered Design and Engineering. Service Design establishes new ways of exploring business opportunities towards agile problem-solving but focuses on the ‘doing’ side towards further implementation. The contribution of this industrial-based doctoral thesis shall define how Service Design can be deployed and implemented in the field of organizational transformation and mobility development in the era of digital transformation (Digitalization). This research approach seeks to acquire new knowledge on how the Service Design practice can be applied and executed to be perceived as a practical approach to improve the enterprise’s processes and operating procedures and also provide a strategy to grow Service Design within the organization. This research has followed developing a pilot in a lean start-up approach of build, measure, learn with various business units and brands within the Volkswagen Group, this also implies that this research case study consisted of analyzing the Volkswagen Group needs for Service Design. The ‘10X-Service Design Lab’ (10X-SDL) has been designed as the framework of a combination of modular lab space, facilitation enhanced process, methodological driven tool box, operational model in alignment with a digital workflow and workspace striving for accelerated decision making. It is based on the hypothesis that the proposed framework enhances Service Design practice and, at the same time, it increases its attractiveness for business purposes. The 10X-SDL is designed to accelerate project development in a human-centered and holistic way by an open workspace platform lead by facilitators on which project developers, participants, and stakeholders can digitally co-create products, services, systems, and strategies. This research has been conducted as a case study within the Volkswagen Group from 2015 to 2019 in cooperation with the main partners of Service Innovation Corner (SINCO) of the University of Lapland and visual collaboration software company DEON

A Very High Level Logic Synthesis

The evolution of Computer Aided Design (CAD) calls for the incorporation of design specifications into a microelectronics system development cycle. This expansion requires the establishment of a new generation of CAD procedures, defined as Very High Level Logic Synthesis (VHLLS). The fundamental characteristics of open-ended VHLLS are: (1) front-end graphical interface; (2) time encapsulation; and (3) automatic translation into a behavioral description. Consequently, the VHLLS paradigm represents an advanced category of CAD-based microelectronics system design, built on a deep usage of expert systems and intelligent methods. Artificial Intelligence (AI) formalisms such as Knowledge Representation System (KRS) are necessary to model properties related to the very high level of specification such as: dealing with ambiguities and inconsistencies, reasoning, computing high-level specification, etc. A prototype VHLLS design suite, called Specification Procedure for Electronic Circuits in Automation Language (SPECIAL), is defined, compared with today\u27s commercial tools and verified using numerous design examples. As a result, a new family of formal and accelerated development methodologies has become feasible with a better understanding of formalized knowledge driving these design processes

An object-based codesign methodology.

The research into Codesign of Hardware and Software stems from the development of embedded systems, on which various systems restrictions are imposed. Typical restrictions can be the overall time (latency) to complete an assigned function and the space/power limits within the system. Although software can be used to undertake most tasks in an embedded system, ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) hardware components sometimes have to be recruited to meet the system constraints. Designing the restricted embedded system with both software and hardware components in it involves the analysis of not only individual hardware/software components but also their mutual influences. Using co-design principles, the approach is to consider both hardware and software from a coherent viewpoint.This thesis presents the results from our research project in the area of Codesign of Hardware and Software. In this project, we investigated previously published codesign approaches and their methodological supports. The investigation has identified shortcomings and problems with the existing codesign methodologies. A new object-based codesign approach (Co-PARSE) is thus developed in this project, which is supported by successive phases, guidelines, and techniques. This methodology offers a coherent design framework for real-time embedded systems and incorporates the criteria of system performance and hardware cost. Tools have been developed to facilitate the use of the methodology. Within the methodology, a high-level system modeling and specification approach has been developed and formalised in the Co-BSL (Codesign Behavior Specification Language). The means of transforming Co-BSL specifications to C and VHDL implementations is defined, and a library of VHDL components provided. The thesis documents the partitioning approach taken within the methodology and proposes a new multi-layered bus architecture as a basis for more flexible and efficient implementations. A means of simulating the performance characteristics of this architecture under different configurations is provided, and examples of simulation results are presented. A new embedded system (the Radio Data Computing System) is designed and simulated in the Co-PARSE methodology and simulation results analysed. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of the work carried out in the project and proposals for extending the results obtained in future research.The major contributions reported in this thesis can be summarised as follows. First, the unified system specification means has been designed, which is embodied in the Co-BSL. It captures overall dynamic aspects and performance constraints in the system under development. This high-level specification language is independent of implementation and does not bias the designer towards the use of hardware or software components at this early stage. Second, within Co-PARSE, the target architecture of the system under development has been exploited to improve the system performance and at the same time to reduce hardware cost. This novel concept has been realised by the introduction of an asynchronous bus protocol and the multi-layer bus communication structure. Third, in order to evaluate the strength and practicability of the Co-PARSE methodology, an extensive case study has been carried out. The new RDC (Radio Dada Computing) System has been designed in the proposed codesign approach. Codesign phases are subsequently applied and the guidelines and tools that are specially developed in support of the methodology are fully utilized

Embedded System Design

A unique feature of this open access textbook is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental knowledge in embedded systems, with applications in cyber-physical systems and the Internet of things. It starts with an introduction to the field and a survey of specification models and languages for embedded and cyber-physical systems. It provides a brief overview of hardware devices used for such systems and presents the essentials of system software for embedded systems, including real-time operating systems. The author also discusses evaluation and validation techniques for embedded systems and provides an overview of techniques for mapping applications to execution platforms, including multi-core platforms. Embedded systems have to operate under tight constraints and, hence, the book also contains a selected set of optimization techniques, including software optimization techniques. The book closes with a brief survey on testing. This fourth edition has been updated and revised to reflect new trends and technologies, such as the importance of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of things (IoT), the evolution of single-core processors to multi-core processors, and the increased importance of energy efficiency and thermal issues

Component-based control system development for agile manufacturing machine systems

It is now a common sense that manufactures including machine suppliers and system integrators of the 21 st century will need to compete on global marketplaces, which are frequently shifting and fragmenting, with new technologies continuously emerging. Future production machines and manufacturing systems need to offer the "agility" required in providing responsiveness to product changes and the ability to reconfigure. The primary aim for this research is to advance studies in machine control system design, in the context of the European project VIR-ENG - "Integrated Design, Simulation and Distributed Control of Agile Modular Machinery"