Course Plan, Administrative Information

This is an introductory course on building embedded systems, including modeling, design, and analysis emphasized in that order.  Knowledge of modeling and Models of Computation is key to understanding a problem, the environment, and essential to designing solutions to that problem. Once the models are built, they need to be refined and implemented onto existing components, which requires a design phase. Finally, to understand whether the results are indeed solutions to the aforementioned problem, one needs to be able to evaluate different metrics of the resulting implementations, which is achieved by analysis.

Reading Material

All the material below is accessible as course documents. Some of these are also open access.

• The course textbook is: E. A. Lee and S. A. Seshia, Introduction to Embedded Systems - A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach, Second Edition, MIT Press, 2017 (pdf, 27.7MB) Download E. A. Lee and S. A. Seshia, Introduction to Embedded Systems - A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach, Second Edition, MIT Press, 2017 (pdf, 27.7MB)
• Additional reading - section 1.4 and chapter 6 from P. Marwedel, Embedded System Design - Embedded Systems Foundations of Cyber-Physical Systems, Fourth Edition, Springer, 2021 (open access pdf, 12.1MB) Download P. Marwedel, Embedded System Design - Embedded Systems Foundations of Cyber-Physical Systems, Fourth Edition, Springer, 2021 (open access pdf, 12.1MB)
  ; Made also available by the book author:
  • the lecture slides Links to an external site. for the previous editions
  • video material Links to an external site. for these
• Additional reading - section 4.4 from P. Eles, K. Kuchcinski, Z. Peng; System Synthesis with VHDL, Springer 1998 Download section 4.4 from P. Eles, K. Kuchcinski, Z. Peng; System Synthesis with VHDL, Springer 1998
  .
• As documentation for the lab assignments tools: Claudius Ptolemaeus, Editor, System Design, Modeling, and Simulation using Ptolemy II, Ptolemy.org, 2014 (pdf, 48.6MB) Download Claudius Ptolemaeus, Editor, System Design, Modeling, and Simulation using Ptolemy II, Ptolemy.org, 2014 (pdf, 48.6MB)
   See also http://ptolemy.org/systems Links to an external site.

Course Brief

• Given during: VT2 (second spring period) == LP4. See TimeEdit schedule Links to an external site..
• Credits: 7.5hp = 3hp (exam) + 4.5hp (labs & seminars)
• Formal course description for EDAN15 Links to an external site.
• Teachers: Flavius Gruian and Jörn Janneck
• Student representative: TBD
• Other course-related information: Cooperation or cheating? Links to an external site.

Course Plan

• embedded systems overview and motivation
• building blocks:
  • processors, memory, sensors/actuators,
  • parallelism vs. concurrency
  • requirements and constraints
• modeling
  • introduction to models of computation (MoC): continuous vs. discrete dynamics
  • sequential MoCs: Finite State Machines (FSM), hybrid models, non-determinism, composition
  • concurrent MoCs: Synchronous Dataflow (SDF), Petri-nets, Synchronous Reactive (SR)
• design
  • overview, challenges
  • scheduling: EDD, EDF, LDF, RM, ASAP, ALAP, List scheduling 
  • mapping: clustering, partitioning
  • (communication synthesis) 
• analysis & verification
  • invariants, temporal logic, equivalence, and refinement
  • reachability analysis, model checking, quantitative analysis

Course Organization

• Lectures: ten meetings in E:C, Tuesday and Thursday at 10:15. Focus is on discussions (not listening to a presentation) around pre-recorded material and textbook.
• Laboratory Assignments: E:Beta, Monday or Tuesday; 1 (ungraded tutorial) + 4 (pass/fail); Deadlines!
• Seminars (2 compulsory): 17/5, 24/5, 8-10 or 10-12. Meetings around the textbook and exam exercises
• Examination: 31/5 in MA10, 14-19; written assignment

TBD = to be decided