Hiroyasu Mitsui

Use of Student Experiments for Teaching Embedded Software Development Including HW/SW Co-Design

Embedded systems have been applied widely, not only to consumer products and industrial machines, but also to new applications such as ubiquitous or sensor networking. The increasing role of software (SW) in embedded system development has caused a great demand for embedded SW engineers, and university education for embedded SW engineering has become important. The embedded software engineers should learn system architecture design and hardware (HW) technologies as well as SW technologies. However, only a few universities offer education courses for embedded software engineering that include system architecture design and HW technologies. This paper proposes a student experiment method that is designed to nurture embedded SW engineers by teaching these technologies. The proposed method includes an experiment for embedded SW development, an experiment for embedded HW development and a HW/SW co-design experiment, which help students learn system architecture design skills such as system modeling, HW/SW tradeoff design, and SW and HW module design. A model of each experiment was developed and evaluated.

A Student Experiment Method for Learning the Basics of Embedded Software Development Including HW/SW Co-design

The applications of embedded system are widespread in not only consumer products and industrial machines but also new applications such as ubiquitous networking or sensor networking. There is a great demand for embedded software engineers in the enterprises, and the education of embedded software engineering in university has become important. The embedded software engineers should acquire both hardware (HW) and software (SW) technologies. We propose a student experiment method to nurture embedded SW engineers who understand HW technologies. The method includes embedded SW and HW design experiments, and a HW/SW co-design experiment. The method helps students learn about system modeling, HW/SW trade-off design as well as SW and HW design. We developed these experiments and evaluated them.

Student experiments for learning basic M2M technologies by implementing sensor network systems

The base technologies for realizing distributed sensor network systems using many wireless sensor terminals have developed rapidly. The sensor network systems are expected to find applications in various fields such as disaster prevention, environmental monitoring, agricultural support, health care, logistics, and business applications. M2M (machine-to-machine) technology enables machines to communicate with each other without human intervention. The M2M technology could possibly play big role in the future in applications such as sensor network systems, networked embedded systems and information-processing systems. This paper proposes a set of student experiment methods that assist students to understand the basic M2M technology by implementing sensor network systems.

A remote experiment system provided with individual guidance function and report preparation support function

In conventional university education, lecture classes have been restricted within the university campus. However, with the progress of Internet technologies, university education is expanding beyond the campus in the form of remote classes via the Internet to give students and adults the chances to acquire higher educations. University education in science and engineering requires laboratory experiments allowing the student to get extensive and practical knowledge, so the methods for performing experiments remotely have been researched. When the students conduct remote experiments with no teachers beside, a function to provide teaching assistance and a function to provide report preparation support are very useful, we consider. In this paper we propose an experiment system for performing remote student experiments that provides a teaching assistance function and a report preparation support function and also the prototype of the remote experiment system we developed and its evaluation are described.

A Student Experiment Method for Embedded System Education Based on Incremental Upgrade

The applications of embedded systems are widespread not only in consumer products and industrial machines but also for ubiquitous or sensor networking. However, the number of embedded system engineers is small and a few universities in Japan offer education pertaining to embedded systems. Embedded system engineers should acquire both the hardware (HW) and software (SW) technologies. We propose an educational method using student experiments to train embedded SW engineers who understand HW technologies. The experiments are related to developing SW, designing FPGA devices and learning HW/SW co-design. By conducting these experiments, students learn system modeling, HW/SW trade-off and development of SW and HW modules. We developed a JPEG encoder experiment using HW/SW co-design for evaluation.

A Method of Visualizing Inter-Module Relations to Support Reuse-Based Embedded Software Development

The demand for embedded software is growing, and the number of development steps tends to increase with shorter period for development. It becomes inevitable to re-use existing software resources. However, if the configuration management of the existing software for reuse is not sufficient, it becomes hard to predict which modules in a system would be affected by the reused software modules. This may result in generating new bugs in the system. In this paper, we propose a method to accomplish the effective reuse of software modules by managing dependency information among modules. The method analyzes mutual relations among existing modules and visually presents not only inter-module dependency but also a list of reusable modules based on the developers demand. We evaluated the method by applying it to some actual developments.

A remote experiment system with individual guidance and report preparation support functions

With the advancement of internet technology, university education is expanding beyond the campus in the form of remote classes via the internet to provide higher education without time and geographical restrictions. University education in science and engineering requires laboratory experiments, allowing students to get extensive practical knowledge. When a student conducts a remote experiment without a teacher present, he may come across various problems that require individual guidance. This paper describes a system for performing remote experiments, which provides individual guidance and report preparation support functions. In addition, it describes the trial remote experiment system and its evaluation.