INFO-F-410 Embedded Systems Design Academic year 2010-2011
	Course description
	Slides and supports
	Project
	Links

This page is outdated ! The new webpage is on the Université Virtuelle

• INFO-F-410 is worth 5 credit points.
• 6 lectures and 6 practicals (check the timetable underneath)
• Motivation: Embedded systems are certainly the most pervasive computer systems today. They can be found as parts of many machines that we rely on everyday, like household appliances, consumer electronics (DVD players, MP3s), vehicles, and so forth. Designing and developing embedded systems is different (albeit similar) task than developing classical software. Indeed, embedded systems are most often applied to control so-called critical systems, that is, systems that can't tolerate any failure. Therefore, the usual constraints on embedded systems are usually stronger than in the case of, for instance, desktop applications: embedded systems have to enforce strict real time constraints, manipulate confidential and sensitive data, and are usually implemented on platforms that impose further cost, size and energy constraints.
• Learning outcomes: The main objective of the course is to get students familiar with the typical problems and constraints that arise when designing and developing embedded systems. The course will also introduce theoretical and practical solutions to these typical problems, that the students are expected to master and be able to apply to realistic case studies.
  At the end of the course, students should be able to design and implement an embedded systems, following the model-centric design. This approach states that the system should be design first as a rigorously stated model, which will allow to offer strong guarantees about the final system. More precisely, the students are expected to: 1) be able to perform a rigorous analysis of a given problem, while taking into account the classical constraints of an embedded system (tools to carry out this analysis will be studied during the lectures). 2) be able to implement the designed system, according to the model.
• Outline: In order to achieve these learning outcomes, the course will alternate between lectures and practicals (see schedule underneath). The lectures will introduce theoretical and practical tools, that will be exploited during the practicals and the project.
• Grading: The project grade is the course grade. See the section about the project.
• Schedule: The schedule so far is as follows (note however that this schedule is subject to changes, so please make sure that you keep up to date with all the announcements regarding this course). Please remark that some practicals will take place in the computer rooms of the NO building. Monday lectures are at 12AM, Wednesday lectures at 8AM (!):

  	Date	Topic	Place
  1	Monday 7/02/2011	Lecture: introduction	OF2072 (Plaine, Forum)
  2	Wednesday 9/02/2011	Lecture: Scade	Forum H (Plaine, NO)
  3	Monday 14/02/2011	Lecture: Scade	OF2072 (Plaine, Forum)
  4	Wednesday 16/02/2011	Practical: Scade	Computer room (Plaine, NO)
  5	Monday 21/02/2011	Lecture: Control theory	OF2072 (Plaine, Forum)
  6	Wednesday 23/02/2011	Practical: Scade	Computer room (Plaine, NO)
  7	Monday 28/02/2011	Lecture: Synthesis and game theory	Rotule, NO building, 8th floor (Plaine)
  8	Wednesday 2/03/2011	Practical: Synthesis and game theory	Forum H (Plaine, NO)
  9	Monday 7/03/2011	Lecture: real time and energy constraints	Rotule, NO building, 8th floor (Plaine)
  10	Wednesday 9/03/2011	Practical: Game theory and synthesis	Computer room (Plaine, NO)
  11	Monday 14/03/2011	Practical: real time and energy	Rotule, NO building, 8th floor (Plaine)
  12	Monday 21/03/2011 Wednesday 16/03/2011	Practical: Linux for embedded systems	Computer room (Plaine, NO)

• Introduction: [PDF 5,6 Mb]. Remark: missing videos can be downloaded here:
  • Centrifugal regulator
  • RFID Passport
• Scade and Lustre: [PDF 3.4 Mb].
  • Here are the examples: Operators: [Zip, 96 Kb]. Gas burner (file "cours"): [Zip, 344 Kb]. Difference between restart and resume transitions: [Zip, 8 Kb].
  • Videos of some demos: Slide 102: [DivX AVI 9.8 Mb]. Slide 132: [DivX AVI 14.4 Mb].
• Control Theory: [PDF 4.5 Mb].
  • Practical [PDF, 72 Kb]
  • Answers (SCADE files): [ZIP, 3.3 Mb]
• Game Theory: [PDF 2.5 Mb].
  • Practical on Muller games (including answers !): [PDF, 264 Kb]
  • Practical on UppAal TiGa [PDF, 98 Kb]
• Scheduling and Energy: [PDF 2,2 Mb].

UPDATE: the list of teams is available.

Students have to realise a project to prove their command of the techniques and concepts studied during the course, and to prove that they have acquired the expected learning outcomes.

Some examples of students projects (in 2008-2009) are shown in a video hereunder. These examples are:

Here are more projects (2010):

• Train crossing simulator: code has been generated from a Uppaal model, and the implementation uses a PIC microcontroler.
• Sweets vending machine: code generated from a Scade model and implementation on a Beagle Board.
• Automatic train: adapts its speed to the track condition and detects obstacles. Modeling has been done with scade, and implementation uses Lego NXT bricks

Practical details:

• Students have to work in team of 4 or 5 persons. The list of teams has to be set up and given to the teacher by the end of February. Students that are not part of a team at the end of February will be assigned a team.
• The aim of the project is to design and implement an embedded system.
• There is no fixed assignment: each team has to devise a topic to work on and send a description of the project to the teacher by the end of March for approval. To be acknowledged, the project should comply to the following requirements.
  First, the project description should contain at least the following information:
  • A high level description of the expected features of the project.
  • The options and choices regarding the software and hardware to be used along the project.
  • A preliminary assignment of the different tasks of the project to the members of the team.
  
  Second, the project should clearly demonstrate the ability of the team members to apply concepts, tools and techniques studied in at least one of the course chapters (for instance: using Scade to model and validate the system, or applying a PID controler or enforcing real-time constraints).
• At the end of the term (on June, 20th) students will hand out a report that presents the project, and explains how the model-centric approach has been applied. The report should be clearly written in English, French or Dutch, adopting a presentation style up to professional standards. The report should clearly explain what has been done to meet the particular constraints that have been identified as pertaining to the project (correctness, real-time,...)
• A project oral defense will take place during the examination session. During this defense, students are expected to briefly present their project and to make a demo. Please note that during the defense each team member maybe interrogated about each part of the project, in order to assess the individual participation of each member to the project.
• Grading will be in accordance to the following scheme:
  • Two marks out of 10 points will be given to each group, the former for the analysis, and the latter for the implementation.
  • A mark of out of 10 will the given to each student, to evaluate his/her capability of presenting the project. This mark will take into account the common report of the team, as well as the answers given by the individual during the oral defense.
  • These three marks will be averaged on 20, with the following weights: 7 points for the analysis, 7 points for the implementation and 6 points for the presentation.
• To sum up:

  List of teams	Feb, 28th
  Descriptions of the projects	March, 31st
  Defense, first session	May, 30th
  Report, first session	June, 20th
  Defense, second session

• General links
  • Embedded.com: news about embedded systems
• OSs
  • Linux devices: about Linux in ES.
  • Top 10 worst uses for Windows
  • Windows for devices: about Windows in ES
• CPUs and microcontrolers
  • ARM
  • Microchip
• Software tools
  • QEMU: free software CPU emulation
  • Uppaal TiGA: UppAal for timed gmaes
  • Scade.
• Theory
  • Automata Theoretic Foundations of Infinite Games. Tutorial by Prof. Wolfgang Thomas (Aachen) on game theory.
  • Real-Time Dynamic Voltage Scaling for Low-Power Embedded Operating Systems.
  • Scheduling Algorithms for Multiprogramming in a Hard-Real-Time Environment.