Realtime OS on Embedded Systems

Program History

My contribution in Embedded System courses started with CmpE146. This course teaches students on how to write UART, SPI, and I2C Drivers and interface their drivers to peripherals. There are about 8 weekly labs in which students not only write drivers, but also learn the core of Real-time Operating Systems including threading (tasks), and inter-task communication using Queues and Semaphores. FreeRTOS is the operating system used with C/C++ Compiler based on GNU.

When the course was started by Dr. Ozemek @ SJSU (sometime before 2005), not many resources were out there. Still, with helpful guidance from Dr. Ozemek, interesting projects were created. This is when I started to help out in Embedded System Courses, and by collecting and sharing knowledge, we've raised the bar at SJSU!

There have been many great projects at SJSU, but since no one knew about them, the hard work went to a waste for anyone but the creator. But now we've got the infrastructure to share the projects, which turn out as great references for future students. Here is my project that started around 2007, and turned into Bachelor's Senior Design Project:
YouTube Video of Self-Navigating Car

As of 2013, I have broadened my contribution to other embedded system courses like CmpE240, CmpE243 and CmpE244.

Lab Assignments

This article contains laboratory assignments and resources. The assignments are under construction as we move towards SJ-One development board.

Senior Design Projects

Semester Projects

Every semester, students are given about 7-10 weeks to complete their projects. During this short time-span, students form groups, order parts, and begin working on their projects. The work performed during the semester is documented at this Wiki.

Here is the list of Preet's documented projects:

Here is another resource for good project references : Cornell EE476 Projects

Grading Criteria

How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
Code Quality
Overall Report Quality:
- Software Block Diagrams
- Hardware Block Diagrams
  Schematic Quality
- Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.

Project Title

Abstract

This section should be a couple lines to describe what your project does.

Objectives & Introduction

Show list of your objectives. This section includes the high level details of your project. You can write about the various sensors or peripherals you used to get your project completed.

Team Members & Responsibilities

Mohit Bhasin
Nadim Sarras

Schedule

Show a simple table or figures that show your scheduled as planned before you started working on the project. Then in another table column, write down the actual schedule so that readers can see the planned vs. actual goals. The point of the schedule is for readers to assess how to pace themselves if they are doing a similar project.

Week#	Date	Task	Actual
1	10/8	Task list	Completed? Problems Encountered?

Parts List & Cost

Give a simple list of the cost of your project broken down by components. Do not write long stories here.

Design & Implementation

The design section can go over your hardware and software design. Organize this section using sub-sections that go over your design and implementation.

Hardware Design

Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.

Hardware Interface

In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.

Software Design

Show your software design. For example, if you are designing an MP3 Player, show the tasks that you are using, and what they are doing at a high level. Do not show the details of the code. For example, do not show exact code, but you may show psuedocode and fragments of code. Keep in mind that you are showing DESIGN of your software, not the inner workings of it.

Implementation

This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.

Testing & Technical Challenges

Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.

Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:

My Issue #1

Discuss the issue and resolution.

Conclusion

Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?

Project Video

Upload a video of your project and post the link here.

Project Source Code

Sourceforge Source Code Link

References

Acknowledgement

Any acknowledgement that you may wish to provide can be included here.

References Used

List any references used in project.

Senior Project: Project Advising: Remote Security System

CmpE146