COSC 4931/5931 Embedded Systems

This course will be part lecture and part senior seminar. The focus of the lecture material will be on systems, languages and tools related to embedded systems. The seminar portion of the course will focus on current research publications in the area. Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

Read, understand, and present current research papers in the area of embedded systems.

Design, implement, and test their own embedded system components for integration into a larger system.

Document complexities of hardware/software interaction in their embedded system components in sufficient detail that the work can be understood and replicated by others.

Student grades will be assigned based on evaluation of the following:

(20%) Presentation and discussion of current, relevant research papers drawn from the top publication venues in the field;

(30%) Quality of embedded system components produced and documented;

(10%) Completeness of final written report detailing both the technical aspects of the constructed components and the lessons learned throughout the construction process.

(40%) Midterm and Final Exams (20% each) on the textbook content.

Week	Topics	Readings	Case Study	Assignments
01	Embedded and Realtime	Ch 1
02	Control and Feedback	Ch 2		Control Simulation
03	Embedded VM issues Networking	Ch 3	Embedded VoIP System
04	Embedded Hardware	Ch 4 Garbage Collection	Helicopter Avionics	Getting Started
05	Embedded Processors	Ch 5 Resource Control	Helicopter POV System
06	Embedded Memory	Ch 6 Embedded Security	Cypress PSoC Power Controller
07	Embedded I/O	Ch 7		Memory
08	Busses	Ch 8		Midterm Exam
09	Device Drivers Real-time Scheduling	Ch 9		Interrupts
10	Operating Systems	Ch 10		Proposal
11	Middleware	Ch 11
12	Design	Ch 12
13	Testing
14	Modeling and Analysis
15	Final Projects

The instructor reserves the right to adjust this schedule as necessary.

Projects will vary according to student interest and available resources. Some sample projects could include:

New device drivers for the WRT160NL (USB, GPIO, wireless, network switch, etc.) or the Virtual Qemu platform (NE2000 NIC, IDE disk interface, frame buffer device, etc.,) the next generation of Embedded Xinu backend.

Real-time scheduling enhancements and lightweight synchronization primitives for Embedded Xinu. Will enhance the suitability of our platform for research and courses on real-time systems.

Porting Embedded Xinu to a new embedded platform (Arduino, ARM Cortex etc.)

Novel hardware peripheral integration (motors, actuators, sensors, sound equipment) for platforms in the Systems Lab, including MIPS, 68HC12, Z86, Arduino and ARM Stm32 devices.

Note: Projects do not have to center on Xinu, but that is the area where we are best-equipped to provide in-depth support.