16-07-2014, 03:39 PM
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
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ABSTRACT
Computers have evolved from few, huge mainframes shared by many people, and mini computers that were smaller but still shared to today’s PCs—millions in number, miniscule in size compared to the mainframes, and used by only one person at a time. The next generation could be invisible, with billions being around and each of us using more than one at a time. Welcome to the world of embedded systems, of computers that will not look like computers and won’t function like anything we’re familiar with Embedded system
EMBEDDED SYSTEM
As the name signifies, an embedded system is ‘embedded’ or built into something else, which is a non-computing device, say a car, TV, or toy. Unlike a PC, an embedded computer in a non-computing device will have a very specific function, say control a car, or display Web pages on a TV screen. So, it need not have all the functionality and hence all the components that a PC has. Similarly, the operating system and applications need not perform all the tasks that their counterparts from the PC sphere are expected to.
In short, we can define an embedded system as a computing device, built into a device that is not a computer, and meant for doing specific computing tasks. These computing tasks could range from acquiring or transferring data about the work done by the mother device to displaying information or controlling the mother
HARDWARE FOR EMBEDDED DEVICES
Universal Micro system is a general-purpose hardware that can be programmed and used to develop applications for different embedded devices
Many modern appliances like MP3 players, ‘intelligent’ refrigerators, and watches use embedded systems. However, a common obstacle for developers has been the need to develop different sets of hardware and software, for different devices. An ‘intelligent’ washing machine uses a hardware chip different from that used by an ‘intelligent’ wristwatch. In addition, the software running on the hardware chip is different. This often results in increased costs and time taken for development. The Universal Micro System (UMS) from Cradle Technologies is a solution for this problem. UMS is a general-purpose chip built around a simple instruction set. It can be used to develop applications for embedded devices because all the functionality required for a specific device can be modeled in the software
UMS HARDWARE
Any software application expects four basic requirements from the underlying hardware: input unit, processing unit, memory unit, and output unit. Since the major functionality provided in UMS is through software, the processor and memory units must be very fast and the input-output units must be programmable and versatile
SOFTWARE ON UMS
The software design has eliminated the need for customized hardware. It has been left to the developer to utilize the power of the numerous processors by using efficient software algorithms. Optimally, each Quad must be fed with independent data blocks (called data parallelism). This is the responsibility of the software developer. What Cradle has provided are some tools to speed up this development: a C compiler, an assembler and a cross assembler, linker, debuggers, and most important, a software simulator of the hardware chip. A custom C-API (Application Programming Interface), comprising of UMS specific library functions, is also provided. These include libraries for TCP/IP, OpenGL 3D, PCI, FireWire, MPEG and DV encoding and decoding.
APPLICATIONS
Embedded systems are finding their way into robotic toys and electronic pets, intelligent cars, and remote-controllable home appliances
ELECTRONIC PETS
Gone are the days when you had dumb stuffed toys with no motion, or feelings to play with. Thanks to the wonders of modern electronics, toys are getting a new life. They have been given feelings that get affected based on how you behave with them. All the major toy makers across the world have been coming out with advanced interactive toys that can become your friends for life. These toys are electromechanical in nature, have sensors to listen, see, talk, and feel your touch. They have complex circuitry, and some use micro-controller chips to control everything. They have memory to store the code that drives the micro-controller, which in turn operates the remaining parts. In other words, toys are amongst the most popular examples of embedded systems. In this article, we’ll see some of the most playful pets in the market, and try to understand what makes them intelligent.
REMOTE CONTROL YOUR HOME
Home appliances, from refrigerators and air-conditioners to televisions and microwave ovens, are going the embedded way. This means that you’ll soon be able to control the temperature of your air-conditioner over the Internet, check e-mail on your refrigerator, make your microwave download recipes from the Internet, or surf the Web on your television. Several home-appliance players have already entered the embedded arena and more are expected to follow. Here’s a look at some products that have made an appearance
DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES IN EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
A look at Inferno and Chai, two popular development environments that are used to develop applications for hardware used in embedded systems
A lot of development is happening on embedded systems with many development platforms, environments, and operating systems being created to help with this process. We present two popular initiatives
INFERNO
Inferno was developed by Computing Science Research Center of Bell Labs. Its core feature is a virtual machine called Dis which makes it portable across various platforms, including Intel x86, Sun Sparc, MIPS, and PowerPC. So it can be used across all the major OSs like Windows (NT and 95), and many flavors of Unix including Linux. Inferno runs as a service under these OSs. It also has its own microkernel, so it can be deployed on embedded devices without a native operating system underneath.
EMBEDDED REAL TIME OPERATING SYSTEMS
The term embedded means combined. An embedded hardware device contains a single chip that contains both hardware and software components of a computer such as memory and base operating systems. Embedded software can be used for a variety of purposes ranging from powering handheld PCs to large scale factory automation. To run these software we need operating systems. Embedded operating systems are used in PDAs, high end cellular phones,MP3 players and palmtop computers. Embedded Operating Systems come in three flavors: WINDOWS, LINUX and others. There are a few dozens of embedded operating systems but we explore a few.
WINDOWS NT EMBEDDED
Windows NT Embedded is a little different from Windows CE Edition. It is developed on windows technology and it excels in networking and communications. It’s price to most of the hardware manufacturers is higher as compared to other operating systems and so it is less popular as compared to other operating systems such as Windows CE Edition
EMBEDDED LINUX
Linux powerful and full featured operating system and it’s embedded version is no exception. Embedded linux is free just like it’s PC counterpart. It’s source code is freely available and the user can modify the core according to his convenience without going through long procedures of licensing and paying for the operating system. In fact, many have predicted that the future of linux is in EMBEDDED WORLD.
CONCLUSION
We are on the threshold of the next wave of rapid growth in high technology. During the 1970’s we witnessed the proliferation of semiconductors that enabled the digital generation. In the 1980’s came the decade of DRAM’s as semiconductor vendors perfected their manufacturing technologies to allow a dramatic increase in memory capacity. The 1990’s will be remembered as the decade of microprocessors as even the casual customer is aware of the megahertz and the motherboard. And now as we have entered the new millennium EMBEDDED SYSTEMS has become the technology of focus with consensus expectations of exponential growth