Embedded Software Research Articles

Predicting software and hardware reliability of embedded systems

In everyday life, reliability of software systems is as important as the usage of software systems because if the software will not be reliable, it will get fail at any time, leaving disasters behind. Apart from this if the software system is an Embedded System, then the reliability of that embedded software system will be important as well as crucial because the usage of embedded system is vast ranging from life supporting systems to flight control system, and if the reliability of these systems has not been considered properly it can lead to risk of lives. Hence, in this paper we will discuss about various component based reliabilties of embedded systems, their architectures and their usage according to the category of the software.

A hybrid methodology to detect memory leaks in soft real-time embedded systems software

As embedded software becomes complex and time to production needs to be minimized, early fixing of flaws in a software design is important. Memory leaks are the most important memory-related problems commonly occurring in embedded software development. We propose a novel hybrid automated memory leak detection approach for soft real-time embedded system software. Our approach combines static and dynamic methodologies to overcome their individual limitations. The static phase generates potential memory leak warnings with the help of source code annotation and control flow graphs. The dynamic phase involves simulation of abstracted memory behaviour with data collected in an abstract memory model (AMM). Actual leaks are determined from the potential leak warnings generated in the static phase. The dynamic simulation phase makes our approach faster and enables early phase leak detection. Our approach is platform independent and evaluation shows that it is more accurate than existing tools.

A hybrid methodology to detect memory leaks in soft real-time embedded systems software

As embedded software becomes complex and time to production needs to be minimized, early fixing of flaws in a software design is important. Memory leaks are the most important memory-related problems commonly occurring in embedded software development. We propose a novel hybrid automated memory leak detection approach for soft real-time embedded system software. Our approach combines static and dynamic methodologies to overcome their individual limitations. The static phase generates potential memory leak warnings with the help of source code annotation and control flow graphs. The dynamic phase involves simulation of abstracted memory behaviour with data collected in an abstract memory model (AMM). Actual leaks are determined from the potential leak warnings generated in the static phase. The dynamic simulation phase makes our approach faster and enables early phase leak detection. Our approach is platform independent and evaluation shows that it is more accurate than existing tools.

Empirical validation for effectiveness of fault prediction technique based on cost analysis framework

Prediction of the faulty or non-faulty modules in a software is an important task in software development life cycle and often carried out by validating them through certain empirical techniques. A good number of techniques have been proposed by different authors to develop fault prediction models and determine best suitable techniques for fault prediction based on certain performance criteria. However it appears that there is a scope to extend the research by giving emphasis on feasibility analysis of fault prediction techniques. In this paper, a cost evaluation framework has been proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of developed fault prediction models. Statistical methods such as linear regression, logistic regression, polynomial regression, Naive Bayes and support vector machine have been applied to develop a classifier in order to predict as to whether any module is a faulty or non-faulty one for an embedded software system. The proposed approach has been applied on five different public domain software system chosen from NASA database consisting of different number of faulty models. The performance of the predicted models are evaluated using different performance evaluation parameters. From cost-based analysis, experimental results reveal that our fault prediction model is best suitable for projects with faulty modules less than a certain threshold value depending on cost and fault identification efficiency of different testing phases. The results also show that the model developed using logistic regression technique obtained promising results in terms of performance and cost when compared with other applied techniques.

A model-based framework encompassing a complete workflow from specification until validation of timing requirements in embedded software systems

Embedded software engineering very often involves development of complex, mission critical software; wherein it is imperative that the developed software fulfills its requirements to achieve high quality. In such cases, there are several advantages of using specialized Requirements Management (RM) tools for managing the requirements. Critical timing requirements are among the foremost non-functional (quality) requirements to be fulfilled by increasingly complex embedded software. Further, a correct and effective timing behavior is among the characteristics of high-quality software. On the other hand, Model-Driven Development (MDD) is considered as the next paradigm shift to address the increasing complexity in embedded software development and to achieve high-quality standards. Similarly, there are specialized tools for validating and analyzing the timing behavior of the embedded software. However, such tools are used very late in the development process, when the actual timing errors occur. Thus, it is intuitive to perceive that an integrated model-based framework encompassing a complete workflow from specification until validation of timing requirements in embedded software systems is very beneficial for high-quality software development, nevertheless is still missing. Addressing the aforementioned gap, this paper proposes an approach toward a complete workflow for managing timing requirements in RM tools, specifying timing behavior in MDD tools and their validation in specialized tools for timing analyses. A prototype implementation of the proposed framework and its experimental evaluation are discussed.

Leveraging Managed Runtime Systems to Build, Analyze, and Optimize Memory Graphs

Optimizing memory management is a major challenge of embedded systems programming, as memory is scarce. Further, embedded systems often have heterogeneous memory architectures, complicating the task of memory allocation during both compilation and migration. However, new opportunities for addressing these challenges have been created by the recent emergence of managed runtimes for embedded systems. By imposing structure on memory, these systems have opened the doors for new techniques for analyzing and optimizing memory usage within embedded systems. This paper presents GEM (Graphs of Embedded Memory), a tool which capitalizes on the structure that managed runtime systems provide in order to build memory graphs which facilitate memory analysis and optimization. At GEM's core are a set of fundamental graph transformations which can be layered to support a wide range of use cases, including interactive memory visualization, de-duplication of objects and code, compilation for heterogeneous memory architectures, and transparent migration. Moreover, since the same underlying infrastructure supports all of these orthogonal functionalities, they can easily be applied together to complement each other.

A Low Cost Eeg Based Bci Prosthetic Using Motor Imagery

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) provide the opportunity to control external devices using the brain ElectroEncephaloGram (EEG) signals. In this paper we propose two software framework in order to control a 5 degree of freedom robotic and prosthetic hand. Results are presented where an Emotiv Cognitive Suite (i.e. the 1st framework) combined with an embedded software system (i.e. an open source Arduino board) is able to control the hand through character input associated with the taught actions of the suite. This system provides evidence of the feasibility of brain signals being a viable approach to controlling the chosen prosthetic. Results are then presented in the second framework. This latter one allowed for the training and classification of EEG signals for motor imagery tasks. When analysing the system, clear visual representations of the performance and accuracy are presented in the results using a confusion matrix, accuracy measurement and a feedback bar signifying signal strength. Experiments with various acquisition datasets were carried out and with a critical evaluation of the results given. Finally depending on the classification of the brain signal a Python script outputs the driving command to the Arduino to control the prosthetic. The proposed architecture performs overall good results for the design and implementation of economically convenient BCI and prosthesis.

A roadmap for scalable agent organizations in the Internet of Everything

Computing is increasingly ubiquitous, with everyday items including smartphones, cars, clothes and household appliances gaining increasingly sophisticated computing and communication capacities. With the development of the Internet of Things, it is just a matter of time before devices have to collaborate and compete with each other, in order to provide better services to mankind.These embedded software systems are increasingly autonomous and connected, and can thus be modeled as multiagent systems (MAS). Only 30 years ago it was science fiction that over a billion people will exchange billions of e-mails on a daily basis. Today a scenario of millions of collaborating agents sometimes embedded in gadgets and appliances, sometimes in form of networked and big data services, may also sound futuristic. However given the current rate of development in electronics, we will soon have to manage large scale MAS where millions of agents exist, collaborate and compete. Organization theory provides the necessary methodology to approach complex systems in order to design, implement and strategically manage them towards success.In this paper a state-of-the-art on organizational design techniques for large-scale MAS will be presented, missing advancements will be identified and a roadmap for future developments and application scenarios will be provided.

An Introductory Embedded Systems Teaching Using Open-Source Hardware and Software Platforms

Embedded systems are used everywhere in human lives. They are in alarm clocks, automobiles, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, home appliances and etc. The Faculty of Electronic Engineering and Technologies at Technical University of Sofia decided after many iterations and discussions with the partners companies and employers organizations to accept a new curriculum for Bachelor degree in Electronics. In order to prepare the students for the challenges of their future job in the new curriculum it was emphasized on the practice and especially on obtaining skills in embedded systems programming. The laboratory classes in “Practice on open source platforms programming” are intended to give the students basic knowledge and skills in this field. The open source hardware and software platforms—Arduino development board and the software IDE, which are globally recognized as tools for introductory education, are chosen for this purpose. In this paper it is proposed a practical approach for teaching the basics of embedded systems hardware and software. The stress is on the program control of inputs and outputs to convince the students in the flexibility and universality of the programmable devices. Also there are introduced the principles of the sensors and their application. Some examples are presented.

Robustness Testing of Embedded Software Systems: An Industrial Interview Study

Embedded software is at the core of current and future telecommunication, automotive, multimedia, and industrial automation systems. The success of practically any industrial application depends on the embedded software system’s dependability, and one method to verify the dependability of a system is testing its robustness. The motivation behind this paper is to provide a knowledge base of the state of the practice in robustness testing of embedded software systems and to compare this to the state of the art. We have gathered the information on the state of the practice in robustness testing from seven different industrial domains (telecommunication, automotive, multimedia, critical infrastructure, aerospace, consumer products, and banking) by conducting 13 semi-structured interviews. We investigate the different aspects of robustness testing, such as the general view of robustness, relation to requirements engineering and design, test execution, failures, and tools. We highlight knowledge from the state of the practice of robustness testing of embedded software systems. We found different robustness testing practices that have not been previously described. This paper shows that the state of the practice, when it comes to robustness testing, differs between organizations and is quite different from the state of the art described in the scientific literature. For example, methods commonly described in the literature (e.g., the fuzzy approach) are not used in the organizations we studied. Instead, the interviewees described several ad hoc approaches that take specific scenarios into account (e.g., power failure or overload). Other differences we found concern the classification of robustness failures, the hypothesized root causes of robustness failures, and the types of tools used for robustness testing. This paper is a first step in capturing the state of the practice of robustness testing of embedded software systems. The results can be used by both researchers and practitioners. Researchers can use our findings to understand the gap between the state of the art and the state of the practice and develop their studies to fill this gap. Practitioners can also learn from this knowledge base regarding how they can improve their practice and acquire other practices.

Industry 4.0 as a Cyber-Physical System study

Advances in computation and communication are taking shape in the form of the Internet of Things, Machine-to-Machine technology, Industry 4.0, and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The impact on engineering such systems is a new technical systems paradigm based on ensembles of collaborating embedded software systems. To successfully facilitate this paradigm, multiple needs can be identified along three axes: (i) online configuring an ensemble of systems, (ii) achieving a concerted function of collaborating systems, and (iii) providing the enabling infrastructure. This work focuses on the collaborative function dimension and presents a set of concrete examples of CPS challenges. The examples are illustrated based on a pick and place machine that solves a distributed version of the Towers of Hanoi puzzle. The system includes a physical environment, a wireless network, concurrent computing resources, and computational functionality such as, service arbitration, various forms of control, and processing of streaming video. The pick and place machine is of medium-size complexity. It is representative of issues occurring in industrial systems that are coming online. The entire study is provided at a computational model level, with the intent to contribute to the model-based research agenda in terms of design methods and implementation technologies necessary to make the next generation systems a reality.

Cyber-physical systems challenges: a needs analysis for collaborating embedded software systems

Embedding computing power in a physical environment has provided the functional flexibility and performance necessary in modern products such as automobiles, aircraft, smartphones, and more. As product features came to increasingly rely on software, a network infrastructure helped factor out common hardware and offered sharing functionality for further innovation. A logical consequence was the need for system integration. Even in the case of a single original end manufacturer who is responsible for the final product, system integration is quite a challenge. More recently, there have been systems coming online that must perform system integration even after deployment--that is, during operation. This has given rise to the cyber-physical systems (CPS) paradigm. In this paper, select key enablers for a new type of system integration are discussed. The needs and challenges for designing and operating CPS are identified along with corresponding technologies to address the challenges and their potential impact. The intent is to contribute to a model-based research agenda in terms of design methods, implementation technologies, and organization challenges necessary to bring the next-generation systems online.

Operationalised product quality models and assessment: The Quamoco approach

ContextSoftware quality models provide either abstract quality characteristics or concrete quality measurements; there is no seamless integration of these two aspects. Quality assessment approaches are, hence, also very specific or remain abstract. Reasons for this include the complexity of quality and the various quality profiles in different domains which make it difficult to build operationalised quality models. ObjectiveIn the project Quamoco, we developed a comprehensive approach aimed at closing this gap. MethodThe project combined constructive research, which involved a broad range of quality experts from academia and industry in workshops, sprint work and reviews, with empirical studies. All deliverables within the project were peer-reviewed by two project members from a different area. Most deliverables were developed in two or three iterations and underwent an evaluation. ResultsWe contribute a comprehensive quality modelling and assessment approach: (1) A meta quality model defines the structure of operationalised quality models. It includes the concept of a product factor, which bridges the gap between concrete measurements and abstract quality aspects, and allows modularisation to create modules for specific domains. (2) A largely technology-independent base quality model reduces the effort and complexity of building quality models for specific domains. For Java and C# systems, we refined it with about 300 concrete product factors and 500 measures. (3) A concrete and comprehensive quality assessment approach makes use of the concepts in the meta-model. (4) An empirical evaluation of the above results using real-world software systems showed: (a) The assessment results using the base model largely match the expectations of experts for the corresponding systems. (b) The approach and models are well understood by practitioners and considered to be both consistent and well suited for getting an overall view on the quality of a software product. The validity of the base quality model could not be shown conclusively, however. (5) The extensive, open-source tool support is in a mature state. (6) The model for embedded software systems is a proof-of-concept for domain-specific quality models. ConclusionWe provide a broad basis for the development and application of quality models in industrial practice as well as a basis for further extension, validation and comparison with other approaches in research.

A Smart Home Test Bed for Undergraduate Education to Bridge the Curriculum Gap From Traditional Power Systems to Modernized Smart Grids

There is a worldwide trend to modernize old power grid infrastructures to form future smart grids, which will achieve efficient, flexible energy consumption by using the latest technologies in communication, computing, and control. Smart grid initiatives are moving power systems curricula toward smart grids. Although the components of smart grids fall within the broader discipline of electrical and computer engineering, undergraduate students are rarely assigned single design projects that require classic power systems knowledge combined with communication, computing, and control. Therefore, as a significant step toward potential curriculum changes, this paper presents such a project, a smart home test bed based on the pedagogical model of project-based learning (PBL) for undergraduate education. The proposed test bed allows undergraduates to gain key knowledge in smart grid topics, such as flattening demand peaks, real-time price response, wireless sensor networks, machine learning, pattern recognition, embedded system programming, user interface design, circuit design, and databases. This is well aligned with smart grid initiatives and provides a platform for students to develop their creativity in engineering design. It also offers real-life examples to be used for raising general public awareness of energy conservation.

Effective Teaching of Course on 8051 Microcontrollers through Course Project

Practice and application-oriented approach in education is important and some research on active learning and cooperative problem-solving has shown that a student will learn faster and understand subject in depth. This paper describes our experience in effective teaching of 8051 Microcontrollers through course project. The course project is designed to improve students' practical thinking, logical ability and to make students, work in team. The course project is aimed at exposing students to the field of embedded systems, and will provide a knowledge foundation which will enable students to pursue subsequent courses in real-time embedded systems software and computer design. Students will become familiar with the associated technical vocabulary and will learn about potential career opportunities in the field of embedded system design. In this paper we present our experience in using a new approach for teaching 8051 microcontroller course and it's associated laboratory.

Object Control on Production Line with Image Processing and Five Axis Robot Arm

Developed and developing countries of the world are seeking high quality, low cost and less time parameters for products which produced with evolving industrial technology. Hence, nowadays instead of manpower machine power is preferred for many industrial applications. In today's industrial applications, robots and robotic arms are widely used because of the amount of high load, continuous operation and features such as low error. In this study, the products which are passing over production line classified with the help of the robot arm and developed embedded system software. In this study, 60 products in total which 45 of them have no manufacturing fault and 15 of them have manufacturing defect have been classified with a very high success rate with 100%.

Towards the development of a device to improve the gait of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Our team is developing a technologically advanced and low-cost device to support the people with Parkinson’s disease in successfully overcoming the phenomenon of freezing (kinesia paradoxa) without external aid. The device, which is using embedded motion sensors, namely gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers, is connected to smart transparent glasses in order to display visual cues. It also includes an embedded software system that fully supports the integration and analysis of the several input signals supporting the generation of visual and audio stimulation which stimulate patients with Parkinson’s disease to walk in their off-phase. The device meets all the requirements for improving the quality of life of people with Parkinson’s disease.

A Research on an Effective Method for Embedded Software Testing

This paper discusses and compares the current development of the methods and techniques of embedded software testing. A compromised and practical embedded software testing method, which is between intervention and non-intervention, is proposed and the flow process is provided as well. The method has been verified by a real-case experiment and the result is satisfactory. Key words: Embedded software; testing method

Formal Approach to Enhance the Reliability of Embedded Software System

Software formal method is a mathematics-based technique for the specification, development and verification of software systems, and has been viewed as an important way to guarantee the reliability of final product. Reliability of Algorithms in embedded software system is in high demand. The paper introduces an algorithm formal approach suitable to the development of embedded software that will enhance its reliability, and as a case study an algorithm has been formally developed.

K Semantics for Assembly Languages: A Case Study

Formal verification of embedded software systems often requires a low-level representation of the program under scrutiny. It is often the case that the verification tools rely on ad-hoc encodings of particular assembly language semantics. In this paper we use the K framework to formally define a MIPS-based assembly language. Our proposed definition is modular in the sense that it accommodates various organizations for the storage-related aspects of the semantics. We also present how to instantiate our K language definition on two main memory models, corresponding to different representations of the assembly code. Such a formal language definition could be directly used by the program verification tools.