The Virtual Testbed
Embedded systems are ubiquitous, a wide variety of industrial and
consumer products are equipped with embedded processors that interact
with the electrical and mechanical parts of the product. The software
engineering practices for embedded systems, however, are still rather
primitive. The languages employed are very low level and there is a
need for better testing tools. Teaching embedded systems programming
is challenging, since it involves many aspects of computer science and
electrical engineering technologies. The traditional teaching
approaches involve either an expensive laboratory for small numbers of
students or are limited to theory without teaching programming skills.
We are developing a hardware-in-the-loop simulation environment for
embedded sytems for use both as a teaching tool and as a software
development and testing tool. This simulation environment allows
programming an actual embedded processor, while some or all of the
electrical and mechanical devices controlled by the embedded
processor, such as power switches or motors, are simulated on the PC.
This approach can be used for teaching larger numbers of students
without the need for an expensive hardware laboratory.
This hardware-in-the-loop simulation environment can also serve as a
testing tool for testing individual embedded systems with part of the
hardware attached but with other hardware or the communication with
other processors being simulated. We are currently working on
developing a testing tool based on timed automata for this environment
for testing the order of events and timing constraints on the
interface between the embedded processor and the external devices. A
translator, the Timed Automaton COmpiler (taco), generates a timed
automaton implementation from a high-level specification similar to
object protocols.
Once this virtual testbed is completed, we are planning to use it as a
research platform for developing language support and better software
engineering tool support for embedded systems programming.
Collaborator
-
Ali Keyhani
Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Ohio State
Students
Former Students
- Abhishek Debchoudhury (BS, May 2007),
Computer Science Dept., University of California, Los Angeles
- Joseph Cali (BS, May 2007),
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Eng., Auburn University
- Guohui Deng (MS, August 2007),
Harris Corp.
- Jing Liu (MS, August 2004),
Intel
- Charadhar Medavarapu (MS, January 2007),
Aster Data
- Amol Patwardhan (MS, August 2006),
Equifax
Publications
2002
1998
- Education in Electronic Systems at the Ohio State University
G. Rizzoni, A. Keyhani, G.N. Washington, B. Chandrasekaran,
G. Baumgartner.
In Proceedings of the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control
Division,
1998 International Mechanical Engineering Congress &
Exposition,
15-20 November 1998, Anaheim, California, American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, DSC-Vol. 64, pp. 389-396.
- A Virtual Testbed for Instruction Design and Control of Power
Converters
A. Keyhani, M.N. Marwali, G. Baumgartner.
1998 IEEE Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting,
July 1998, San Diego, California.
Funding
Gerald Baumgartner
Last modified: Mon May 9 10:42:19 CDT 2011