Interactive Real-Time Embedded Systems Education Infused with Applied Internet Telephony

The transition from traditional circuit-switched phone systems to modern packet-based Internet telephony networks demands tools to support Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) development. In this paper, we introduce the XinuPhone, an integrated hardware/software approach for educating users about VoIP technology on a real-time embedded platform. We propose modular course topics for design-oriented, hands-on laboratory exercises: filter design, timing, serial communications, interrupts and resource budgeting, network transmission, and system benchmarking. Our open-source software platform encourages development and testing of new CODECs alongside existing standards, unlike similar commercial solutions. Furthermore, the supporting hardware features inexpensive, readily available components designed specifically for educational and research users on a limited budget. The XinuPhone is especially good for experimenting with design trade-offs as well as interactions between real-time software and hardware components

Pornography and the First Amendment

The complexity among embedded systems has increased dramatically in recent years. During the same time has the capacity of the hardware grown to astonishing levels. These factors have contributed to that software has taken a leading role and time-consuming role in embedded system development.Compared with regular software development, embedded development is often more restrained by factors such as hardware performance and testing capability. A solution to some of these problem has been proposed and that is a concept called virtual platforms. By emulating the hardware in a software environment, it is possible to avoid some of the problems associated with embedded software development. For example is it possible to execute a system faster than in reality and to provide a more controllable testing environment. This thesis presents a case study of an application specific virtual platform. The platform is based on already existing embedded system that is located in an industrial control system.  The virtual platform is able to execute unmodified application code at a speed twice of the real system, without causing any software faults. The simulation can also be simulated at even higher speed if some accuracy losses are regarded as acceptable.The thesis presents some tools and methods that can be used to model hardware on a functional level in an software environment. The thesis also investigates the accuracy of the virtual platform by comparing it with measurements from the physical system. In this case are the measurements mainly focused of the data transactions in a controller area network bus (CAN)

Virtual Prototyping through Co-simulation of a Cartesian Plotter

This paper shows a model-based design trajectory for the development of real-time embedded control software using virtual prototyping. As a test case, a Cartesian plotter is designed. Functional correctness of the plotter software has been ensured by means of co-simulation using a virtual prototype before deploying it on target. Except for the interface implementation, the software that is used in the co-simulation is identical to the software that is compiled to run on the target computing platform. Virtual prototyping is especially important if the real target can damage itself if it is operated outside its safe operation zone or when prototypes are not yet available for testing. The co-simulation of the software against a virtual prototype resulted in a first-time-right deployment on the real target

Integrated Design and Implementation of Embedded Control Systems with Scilab

Embedded systems are playing an increasingly important role in control engineering. Despite their popularity, embedded systems are generally subject to resource constraints and it is therefore difficult to build complex control systems on embedded platforms. Traditionally, the design and implementation of control systems are often separated, which causes the development of embedded control systems to be highly time-consuming and costly. To address these problems, this paper presents a low-cost, reusable, reconfigurable platform that enables integrated design and implementation of embedded control systems. To minimize the cost, free and open source software packages such as Linux and Scilab are used. Scilab is ported to the embedded ARM-Linux system. The drivers for interfacing Scilab with several communication protocols including serial, Ethernet, and Modbus are developed. Experiments are conducted to test the developed embedded platform. The use of Scilab enables implementation of complex control algorithms on embedded platforms. With the developed platform, it is possible to perform all phases of the development cycle of embedded control systems in a unified environment, thus facilitating the reduction of development time and cost.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures; Open Access at http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/papers/s8095501.pd

FASTCUDA: Open Source FPGA Accelerator & Hardware-Software Codesign Toolset for CUDA Kernels

Using FPGAs as hardware accelerators that communicate with a central CPU is becoming a common practice in the embedded design world but there is no standard methodology and toolset to facilitate this path yet. On the other hand, languages such as CUDA and OpenCL provide standard development environments for Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) programming. FASTCUDA is a platform that provides the necessary software toolset, hardware architecture, and design methodology to efficiently adapt the CUDA approach into a new FPGA design flow. With FASTCUDA, the CUDA kernels of a CUDA-based application are partitioned into two groups with minimal user intervention: those that are compiled and executed in parallel software, and those that are synthesized and implemented in hardware. A modern low power FPGA can provide the processing power (via numerous embedded micro-CPUs) and the logic capacity for both the software and hardware implementations of the CUDA kernels. This paper describes the system requirements and the architectural decisions behind the FASTCUDA approach

Multicore development environment for embedded processor in arduino IDE

Internet of things (IoT) technology has found more applications that require complex computation while still preserving power. Embedded processors as the core of the IoT system approaches the need for computation by employing a parallel processor system, namely MPSoC. While various MPSoCs hardware is widely available, there is limited software support form of user-friendly libraries and development platform. There is a need for such a platform to facilitate both the study and development of parallel embedded software. arduino as the widely used embedded development platform is yet to officially support multicore programming. This work proposes an arduino-based development environment that supports multicore programming while maintaining arduino’s simple program structure, targeted at specific low-power MPSoC, the RUMPS401. The environment is fully functional, and while it targets only specific MPSoC, the proposed environment can easily be adopted to other MPSoCs with similar structures with minimal modification

An Architecture Description Language for Embedded Hardware Platforms

Embedded software development relies on various tools - compilers, simulators, execution time estimators - that encapsulate a more-or-less detailed knowledge of the target hardware platform. These tools can be costly to develop and maintain:significant benefits could be expected if they were automatically generated from models expressed in a dedicated modeling language.In contrast with Hardware Description Languages (HDLs), that focus on the internal structure and behavior of an electronic board of chip, Hardware Architecture Description Languages consider hardware as a platform for software execution. Such a platform will be described in terms of low-level programming interface (processor instruction set),resources (processing elements, memory and peripheral devices) and elementary services (arithmetic and logic operations, bus transactions).This paper gives an overview of HARMLESS (Hardware ARchitecture Modeling Language for Embedded Software Simulation), a new domain-specific language for modeling embedded hardware platforms. HARMLESS and its associated tools follow the Model-Driven Engineering philosophy: metamodeling and model transformations have been successfully applied to the automatic generation of processor simulators

An Architecture Description Language for Embedded Hardware Platforms

Embedded software development relies on various tools - compilers, simulators, execution time estimators - that encapsulate a more-or-less detailed knowledge of the target hardware platform. These tools can be costly to develop and maintain:significant benefits could be expected if they were automatically generated from models expressed in a dedicated modeling language.In contrast with Hardware Description Languages (HDLs), that focus on the internal structure and behavior of an electronic board of chip, Hardware Architecture Description Languages consider hardware as a platform for software execution. Such a platform will be described in terms of low-level programming interface (processor instruction set),resources (processing elements, memory and peripheral devices) and elementary services (arithmetic and logic operations, bus transactions).This paper gives an overview of HARMLESS (Hardware ARchitecture Modeling Language for Embedded Software Simulation), a new domain-specific language for modeling embedded hardware platforms. HARMLESS and its associated tools follow the Model-Driven Engineering philosophy: metamodeling and model transformations have been successfully applied to the automatic generation of processor simulators

Software Development in the Cloud: Exploring the Affordances of Platform-as-a-Service

Software development teams increasingly adopt platform-as-a-service (PaaS), i.e., cloud services that make software development infrastructure available over the internet. Yet, empirical evidence of whether and how software development work changes with the use of PaaS is difficult to find. We performed a grounded-theory study to explore the affordances of PaaS for software development teams. We find that PaaS enables software development teams to enforce uniformity, to exploit knowledge embedded in technology, to enhance agility, and to enrich jobs. These affordances do not arise in a vacuum. Their emergence is closely interwoven with changes in methodologies, roles, and norms that give rise to self-organizing, loosely coupled teams. Our study provides rich descriptions of PaaS-based software development and an emerging theory of affordances of PaaS for software development teams

A platform based approach for embedded systems software development

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-96).A platform based approach for product development allows companies to eliminate redundancies, efficiently utilize its resources and provide products for a wider market. The basic idea is to develop and share key components and to introduce new technologies in as many products as possible. The automobile industry has for long used the concept of product platforms and has successfully achieved savings in development costs and seen a growth in sales and market share. By creating a common software platform, this concept can be applied to software development for embedded systems where software modules and applications can be shared across products within a product family. This provides better code reuse and increases standardizations across products. This thesis will examine how the concept of platforms can be applied to software development from the viewpoint of the telecommunications industry. By using the power of a common software platform, telecommunication equipment makers can accelerate product delivery and introduce new technologies to a wider range of customers. With the right strategy, they can also make their products into platforms that serve as a foundation on which other companies can develop products and offer their services.by Deepak Seth.S.M