Course Catalogue

LJMU Partner Taught

To provide an overview of designing and engineering embedded systems, including high-level hardware architectures and software systems with references to architectures, communication and synchronisation. To investigate the development of a connected embedded system and appropriate support software services.

Outline Syllabus:Embedded Systems: Basic Architectures / Issues -bare metal, superloops and real-time operating systems -interrupt-driven execution GPIO – Getting data in / out and electronic-software interfacing -basic related interfacing/electronics concepts -analogue-digital conversion and PWM -noise reduction/filtering Memory and storage: resource constrained systems -Programmer-centred memory management : stack, heap and global/statics -Smart pointers and automatic release / garbage collection Serial over GPIO – SPI, I2C, flash/SD card storage -Bus systems and line arbitration / access -shared clock / asynchronous vs. synchronous systems -Hardware-support and bit-banged (software-defined) implementations WiFi and Internet connectivity -common library and driver support -socket programming and stream parsing -RESTful server and smart client provisioning -Automatic update mechanisms Pattern-based embedded software design -Superloop and/vs Strategy / State / State Table / Scheduling -Façade / Proxy / Mediator / interfacing Concurrent vs. Serial execution -Liveness and Deadlock -Data Races and Atomicity

Additional Information:This module broadens a Software Engineer’s horizons to include system and software development for embedded systems, with consideration of the Internet of Things. Students are required to have considerable high-level programming knowledge by level 6; this will be expanded to consider working with lower-level architectural concerns and development software for “baremetal” systems.