Hisao Koizumi

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.

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.

An M2M Data Analysis Service System Based on Open Source Software Environments

Data analysis in a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) service system should concurrently satisfy three requirements, massive data analysis, real-time data analysis, and deep data analysis. However, for this purpose, it is necessary to introduce costly software products such as a Data Stream Management System (DSMS) into M2M service system. In this paper, we propose an M2M data analysis service system using open source software environments, such as SQLite and R, for small-and medium-sized M2M service system. In this study, we evaluate the proposed system based on an application scenario assuming a demand response system smart grid, and extract challenges for the future.

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.

Continuous Truck Delivery Scheduling and Execution System with Multiple Agents

In this paper, we propose a practical method for solving the delivery-scheduling problem and discuss its implementation. The method is based on the cooperative problem solving with multiple agents. In the truck delivery scheduling method, the covered region is partitioned into multiple subregions and each sub-region is assigned a sub-problem solving agent. For integrating those sub-problem solving agents, an integration-and-evaluation agent solves the total problem. We also discuss the functions for building cooperative decision support system in a mobile environment in delivery scheduling domain. We consider a delivery center with function, i.e., generating and integrating delivery schedule, acquiring and managing the information shared commonly by all delivery persons, and dispatching the selected information to delivery persons, and the mobile terminal that a delivery person uses for exchanging information with the center. By employing the multi-agent problem solving framework for the delivery scheduling problem, we achieved an easy incorporation of various evaluation parameters in the process of scheduling, efficient use and management of scheduling knowledge of various levels.

A smart method of cooperative learning including distant lectures and its experimental evaluations

Cooperative learning links students together to help them attain their learning objective under the guidance of teachers. With the spread of the Internet, cooperative learning has attracted educational technology interest, and research is proceeding into the use of bulletin boards, teleconferencing and chat rooms, etc., to support cooperative learning systems. However, cooperative learning systems tend to be used independently of distance learning, and very little work is being done on cooperative learning methods that include distant lectures. We believed that if remote lectures could be included in cooperative learning by students, the effectiveness of this cooperative learning could be improved. The article proposes a methodology for incorporating distant lectures in cooperative learning and provides an experimental evaluation. To evaluate this method we created a cooperative learning prototype and performed evaluations within our department.

An Experimental Evaluation using SQLite for Real-Time Stream Processing

AbstractThe data generated at a very high rate by sensors and RFIDs are required to be handled by continuous queries keeping real time response. Because of its purpose, DSMSs are used in several cases of these large scale systems. On the other hand, sensor terminal systems include lightweight RDBMSs generally in many cases. So if lightweight RDBMSs can handle the high rate data directly, it is convenient for several applications. This paper proposes a speed-up method of stream processing by using the lightweight RDBMS SQLite without any special modifications.

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 proposal of multi-agent system development framework for cooperative problem solving and its experimental evaluation

The research and development results of agent technology are awaited as the software solution with autonomy and social ability, which can provide the way to realize social activities on the Internet. However, the current status of the agent research is that many researches are for a specific application domain and are lacking in generality, and it is hard to apply the framework of the existing research to other fields. Moreover, it is thought that practical usage of agent is in immature state that there are few practical application examples and the system development methodology is not sufficient. In this research, the cooperative problem solving system by the multi-agent is first shown as an application development framework by the agents. Then, we present usage of templates of the agent model and the task model as the development support technique. And the evaluation according to an application construction experiment in a planning problem or the field of network community support is discussed.