CS5785: Advanced Embedded Systems (Fall 2008)

General Information

lectures: T,H 02:00 PM-03:20 PM in WEB 2230
labs: T 03:30-05:00 in MEB 2265 -- the ECE digital lab
instructor: John Regehr
John's office hours: talk to me during lab sessions, or stop by my office MEB 3118 (also see my schedule)
TA: Eli Ribble (ribble@cs.utah.edu)
TA's office hours: lab time
prerequisites: Chris Myers' class, ECE/CS 3720, is the suggested prerequisite. However, 5785 is also open to students who know C and who have taken an undergrad OS course, or equivalent. If in doubt talk to John Regehr.
class mailing list: cs5785@list.eng.utah.edu -- everyone enrolled in the class should subscribe to this list
add/drop policy: the University is strict on this, see here for details and also keep the academic calendar in mind
incomplete policy: incompletes are a pain for everyone involved; I won't give you one unless you have a documented legal or medical emergency

Course Organization

This course is about building reliable and efficient embedded systems, with a bias towards software issues and a bias towards whole-system issues. Students complete several projects in C running on ColdFire-based embedded development boards. The course covers a number of special topics such as embedded software architectures, digital signal processing, feedback control, real-time scheduling, verification and validation, wired and wireless embedded networks, and safety-critical embedded systems.
This course assumes that you are already a C programmer (however, we do spend some time covering differences between "regular C" and "embedded C"). Additionally, students are expected to rapidly acquire the following skills:
- Writing interrupt handlers and interfacing with hardware devices.
- Using a breadboard and logic analyzer
- Learning low-level details from processor reference manuals
Grades will be assigned based on homeworks, programming assignments, exams, and class participation.

Books

Optional but strongly recommended: The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie (CS, CE, and ECE students should own a copy of this book anyway).
Optional: Embedded Microcomputer Systems: Real Time Interfacing, 2nd Edition, by Jonathan Valvano.

AddALL is a good search engine to use if you want to minimize the amount of money you spend on books.

Homework

Students are encouraged to discuss homework solutions and programming assignments with each other. However, you must never make an electronic copy of someone's code or assignment, or type/write while looking at their code or assignment. These count as cheating.
Late homeworks will not be accepted unless you have a good excuse AND you have made arrangements with me in advance.
Submission instructions that apply to all labs and homeworks
Grades information will be available as Eli gets it finished

Lab Work

Students, working in pairs, will complete a number of programming projects. They will start out easy and become more involved as the semester progresses.
For cheating purposes labs are like homeworks expect that you work in groups. It is never acceptable to look at another group's source code or make an electronic copy.
All members of a group receive the same grade for each lab.
The hardware platform for this course is a ColdFire-based board from Freescale.
The software platform for this course is ANSI C.
For more information see the lab page.
Late labs will not be accepted unless you have a good excuse AND you have made arrangements with me in advance.
Submission instructions that apply to all labs and homeworks

Course Schedule

This schedule is always tentative, I always reserve the right to move lectures around. However, exam dates are fixed once they appear here. Due dates for homeworks and labs may rarely be moved later, but will never be moved earlier.

Note: slides marked with stars are from Fall 2007, posted here for your convenience. The 2008 versions, when they appear, will usually be pretty similar.

date	topic	reading	slides	assignment
8/26	course intro		lecture 1
8/28	intro continued, C pre-quiz
9/2	ARM and ColdFire architectures		lecture 2
9/4	tools and toolchains	Getting the Least Out of Your C Compiler	lecture 3
9/9	embedded C		lecture 4	lab 1 assigned
9/11	advanced C		lecture 4b	homework 1 assigned
9/16	interrupts, inline assembly, intrinsics		lecture 5	lab 1 due lab 2 assigned
9/18	MISRA C and other language subsets		lecture 6
9/23	RAM limits and embedded C extensions		lecture 7
9/25	advanced interrupts		1up, 6up	homework 1 due
9/30	debugging embedded systems		1up, 6up	lab 2 due lab 3 assigned
10/2	advanced threads		1up, 6up
10/7	energy and power		1up, 6up
10/9	testing embedded systems		1up, 6up
10/14	fall break
10/16	fall break
10/21	Neal Patwari guest lecture			lab 3 due
10/23	no class
10/28	testing embedded systems
10/30	exam
11/4	safety critical systems		1up, 6up	lab 4 assigned
11/6	embedded networks		1up, 6up
11/11	CAN bus		1up, 6up
11/13	digital signal processing		1up, 6up
11/18	DSPs		1up, 6up
11/20	real time intro and cyclic execs		1up, 6up
11/25	priority scheduling		1up, 6up	lab 4 due
11/27	Thanksgiving
12/2	response time analysis		1up, 6up	homework 2 assigned
12/4	timing analysis		1up, 6up
12/9	feedback control		1up, 6up
12/11	TBD			homework 2 due

Final Exam is: Weds, 12/17, 1:00-3:00

This page is maintained by John Regehr, mail me if you find a mistake or if any content is unclear.