PRISE: An Integrated Platform for Research and Teaching of Critical Embedded Systems

In this paper, we present PRISE, an integrated workbench for Research and Teaching of critical embedded systems at ISAE, the French Institute for Space and Aeronautics Engineering. PRISE is built around state-of-the-art technologies for the engineering of space and avionics systems used in Space and Avionics domain. It aims at demonstrating key aspects of critical, real-time, embedded systems used in the transport industry, but also validating new scientific contributions for the engineering of software functions. PRISE combines embedded and simulation platforms, and modeling tools. This platform is available for both research and teaching. Being built around widely used commercial and open source software; PRISE aims at being a reference platform for our teaching and research activities at ISAE

Temporal behavior of Ethernet communications: impact of the operating system and protocol stack

Ethernet is currently the most widely used networking technology, spanning across many application domains including embedded systems. In this particular case, Ethernet is even used in many time-critical applications in which the delay induced by communication must be short and bounded. It is thus very important to understand the entire transmission process and assess its temporal behavior. There are a number of aspects to consider, including the network protocol, network topology, network elements and end devices. This paper aims at assessing the impact of the operating system and its protocol stack implementation in the end devices on the network temporal behavior. We studied four operating systems, namely a standard Ubuntu distribution with and without a real-time kernel patch, an embedded stripped down version of Linux and QNX Neutrino, and two hardware platforms, namely ordinary PCs and a single board computer based on an AVR32 CPU. We measured the Round Trip Delay (RTD) using RAW, UDP and TCP sockets to interface the protocol stack. We verified that on high computing power platforms the difference between the sockets is small but still significant in resource-constrained platforms. On the other hand, full featured general OSs present rather large worst-case delays. These can be reduced using real-time patches for those OSs, RTOSs, or even removing unnecessary modules, services and particularly, data intensive device drivers. We believe this study can be helpful for system designers as well as for teaching networks courses in embedded systems.Ethernet is currently the most widely used networking technology, spanning across many application domains including embedded systems. In this particular case, Ethernet is even used in many time-critical applications in which the delay induced by communication must be short and bounded. It is thus very important to understand the entire transmission process and assess its temporal behavior. There are a number of aspects to consider, including the network protocol, network topology, network elements and end devices. This paper aims at assessing the impact of the operating system and its protocol stack implementation in the end devices on the network temporal behavior. We studied four operating systems, namely a standard Ubuntu distribution with and without a real-time kernel patch, an embedded stripped down version of Linux and QNX Neutrino, and two hardware platforms, namely ordinary PCs and a single board computer based on an AVR32 CPU. We measured the Round Trip Delay (RTD) using RAW, UDP and TCP sockets to interface the protocol stack. We verified that on high computing power platforms the difference between the sockets is small but still significant in resource-constrained platforms. On the other hand, full featured general OSs present rather large worst-case delays. These can be reduced using real-time patches for those OSs, RTOSs, or even removing unnecessary modules, services and particularly, data intensive device drivers. We believe this study can be helpful for system designers as well as for teaching networks courses in embedded systems

XinuPi3: Teaching Multicore Concepts Using Embedded Xinu

As computer platforms become more advanced, the need to teach advanced computing concepts grows accordingly. This paper addresses one such need by presenting XinuPi3, a port of the lightweight instructional operating system Embedded Xinu to the Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi 3 improves upon previous generations of inexpensive, credit card-sized computers by including a quad-core, ARM-based processor, opening the door for educators to demonstrate essential aspects of modern computing like inter-core communication and genuine concurrency. Embedded Xinu has proven to be an effective teaching tool for demonstrating low-level concepts on single-core platforms, and it is currently used to teach a range of systems courses at multiple universities. As of this writing, no other bare metal educational operating system supports multicore computing. XinuPi3 provides a suitable learning environment for beginners on genuinely concurrent hardware. This paper provides an overview of the key features of the XinuPi3 system, as well as the novel embedded system education experiences it makes possible

Powering the Internet of Things with RIOT: Why? How? What is RIOT?

The crucial importance of software platforms was highlighted by recent events both at the political level (e.g. renewed calls for digital data and operating system "sovereignty", following E. Snowden's revelations) and at the business level (e.g. Android generated a new industry worth tens of billions of euros yearly). In the Internet of Things, which is expected to generate business at very large scale, but also to threaten even more individual privacy, such aspects will be exacerbated. The need for an operating system like RIOT stems from this context, and this short article outlines RIOT's main non-technical aspects, as well as its key technical characteristics.Comment: 4 page

Tools of the Trade: A Survey of Various Agent Based Modeling Platforms

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) toolkits are as diverse as the community of people who use them. With so many toolkits available, the choice of which one is best suited for a project is left to word of mouth, past experiences in using particular toolkits and toolkit publicity. This is especially troublesome for projects that require specialization. Rather than using toolkits that are the most publicized but are designed for general projects, using this paper, one will be able to choose a toolkit that already exists and that may be built especially for one's particular domain and specialized needs. In this paper, we examine the entire continuum of agent based toolkits. We characterize each based on 5 important characteristics users consider when choosing a toolkit, and then we categorize the characteristics into user-friendly taxonomies that aid in rapid indexing and easy reference.Agent Based Modeling, Individual Based Model, Multi Agent Systems

An Experimental Nexos Laboratory Using Virtual Xinu

The Nexos Project is a joint effort between Marquette University, the University of Buffalo, and the University of Mississippi to build curriculum materials and a supporting experimental laboratory for hands-on projects in computer systems courses. The approach focuses on inexpensive, flexible, commodity embedded hardware, freely available development and debugging tools, and a fresh implementation of a classic operating system, Embedded Xinu, that is ideal for student exploration. This paper describes an extension to the Nexos laboratory that includes a new target platform composed of Qemu virtual machines. Virtual Xinu addresses two challenges that limit the effectiveness of Nexos. First, potential faculty adopters have clearly indicated that even with the current minimal monetary cost of installation, the hardware modifications, and time investment remain troublesome factors that scare off interested educators. Second, overcoming the inherent complications that arise due to the shared subnet that result in students\u27 projects interfering with each other in ways that are difficult to recreate, debug, and understand. Specifically, this paper discusses porting the Xinu operating systems to Qemu virtual hardware, developing the virtual networking platform, and results showing success using Virtual Xinu in the classroom during one semester of Operating Systems at the University of Mississippi

Open Source Software: From Open Science to New Marketing Models

-Open source Software; Intellectual Property; Licensing; Business Model.