This thesis presents the design and evaluation of an operating system kernel specially designed for dataflow software. Dataflow is a style of software architecture that is well suited for control and "signal flow" applications. This architecture involves many small processes and lots of inter-process communication, which impose too much overhead on traditional RTOSes. This thesis describes design and implementation of the Dataflow Architecture Real-time Kernel (DARK). DARK is a reconfigurable, multithreaded and preemptive operating system kernel that introduces a special data-driven scheduling strategy for dataflow applications. It uses the underlying hardware for high-speed context switching between the kernel and applications, which is five times faster than the ordinary context switch. The features of the kernel can be configured according to performance requirements without change to the applications. Along with the performance evaluation of DARK, the performance comparison results of DARK with two commercial RTOSes: MicroC/OS-II and Analog Devices VDK++ are also provided. / Master of Science

本研究以研究者本人實際創業的P軟體公司之實際戰略轉型案例，從台灣軟體產業、全球嵌入式軟體產業、台灣電資通產業的創新轉型相關政策與產業動態的初級和次級資料，以質化分析，探討下列三面向之問題（價值、資源、體系）：P公司想要轉型進入『嵌入式軟體業』未來營運範疇為何？P公司轉型所能憑藉的資源與能力為何？P公司如何在外界的環境中辨認出正確且有力的策略夥伴？應該如何找到他們？結合的方式為何？ 本研究之方法適用夏恩博士的理論『科技創業聖經』，原名為『尋找肥沃田地---為新事業辨識絕佳的機會』（Finding Fertile Ground – Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures）作者夏恩Scott A. Shane結合北美一流企業管理及創新研究學府諸多重量級學者之理論成果及實戰經驗歸納於其十大議題，並於每一議題敷設十分深刻且具穿透力的自我檢核，對於創業者及如本研究者一般的轉型經營者提供極有啟發及值得深思、明辨後做出策略取捨的好問題。本研究之主軸是圍繞著如何以P公司自身轉型情境來回應十大議題進行。 本研究發現是藉由P公司實務與夏恩理論十項議題的對話發掘出P公司轉型實際作法，在價值面向：選擇正確的產業、找出有價值的機會、辨識並滿足實際市場需求、了解顧客採用行為；在資源面向：利用既有公司的弱點、管理智慧財產權、將報酬導向創新；在體系面向：管理科技演變、選擇正確的組織結構、管理風險和不確定性，以夏恩十項重點問題為理論透鏡，檢視P公司實務體會心得，並整理規納到三面向的框架，從而對P公司戰略轉型起到指導性的作用。結論部份，則將研究與實務雙向交流的過程中，在實務上有其效用之處，及理論上獲印證之回饋點，匯整而闡明之。 / This research adopts researcher him self’s real practice in founding the P software company as the case study of strategic transformation. Since P software company transforms herself from the domestic enterprise project field to Taiwan’s hi-tech industry software solution exporting to the worldwide market, such a big change in a short period（within a year）, the research needs to review the environment factors from Taiwan’s SW industry, global embedded SW industry, Taiwan’s ICT industry(IT/Consumer Electronics/Telecom). With P software’s first hand experience and quality research approach, we intend to explore the following questions from 3 dimensions（value/resource/network）: What would be the future operation scope for P company to transform to be? What are the resources and competences which P company can reply upon during her transformation？How P company to identify the correct and powerful strategic partners to boost up her transformation among the outside indutrial environment？How to find them？What would be the best joint alliance model with them？The research approach applies Scott A. Shane’s theory framework－ Finding Fertile Ground – Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures, and we have key findings after a dialog procedure which P Company’s real practices interact to Shane’s 10 initiatives. The result shows the power and change exercised upon P Company’s transformation out of it.

The aim of this report is to give a description of a diploma work of 20 points that has been performed during the spring 2006 at Ericsson AB in Borås. The report accounts for the problem and procedure during the diploma work. The software used for this project was embedded in a radio link. The RAM in this radio link was divided into several regions where two were used for memory allocation. The current allocation of memory in the radio link was not optimized with regards to performance, security and memory use and the configuration used made it difficult to determine the memory use of the system and the actual memory need. Furthermore, no garbage collection existed; this resulted in fragmentation and reduction in performance arising over time. The objective of the diploma work was to optimize the allocation of memory in the radio link's software and being able to measure the processor load and memory use. The project was managed according to a work method where UML-diagrams were used and the project deliverables were defined according to a process specification from Ericsson AB. The project was time-limited and has been performed in ten weeks by two students. The project was divided up in three iterations, each iteration consisting of a number of tasks. A milestone is set after each at which the intended tasks are validated and done with. An application fulfilling these requirements was developed, using C#.NET and Visual studio 2005, and that presents its results graphically. It is applicable in development, error search and verification of the radio link's software. ANSI-C and x86-assembler were used for development and modification of the software that is being executed in the radio link. Due to secrecy policies at Ericsson AB the report has been censored and the removed sections replaced with […]. / Uppsatsnivå: C

With continuous advancement in silicon technology and high feature demands on consumer electronics, the complexity of embedded software has led the software development effort to dominate System-On-Chip (SoC) design. Virtual Prototype (VP) addresses the problem by enabling early software development before hardware arrival. However, VP still poses challenges: 1) Instruction Set Simulator (ISS) degrades simulation time, 2) Development is restricted to embedded processor specific tools and 3) Applications and drivers are dependent on system software completion. In this work, we propose an abstraction framework which: 1) Removes ISS from VP, achieving native host software execution time, 2) Activates rich suites of desktop development tools in host by compiling embedded software in host binary and 3) Allows system software independent application and driver development. With this framework, we successfully demonstrated up to 2000% speed-up in VP run-time over conventional VP and improved software development productivity significantly.

With continuous advancement in silicon technology and high feature demands on consumer electronics, the complexity of embedded software has led the software development effort to dominate System-On-Chip (SoC) design. Virtual Prototype (VP) addresses the problem by enabling early software development before hardware arrival. However, VP still poses challenges: 1) Instruction Set Simulator (ISS) degrades simulation time, 2) Development is restricted to embedded processor specific tools and 3) Applications and drivers are dependent on system software completion. In this work, we propose an abstraction framework which: 1) Removes ISS from VP, achieving native host software execution time, 2) Activates rich suites of desktop development tools in host by compiling embedded software in host binary and 3) Allows system software independent application and driver development. With this framework, we successfully demonstrated up to 2000% speed-up in VP run-time over conventional VP and improved software development productivity significantly.

In this thesis, the Test Driven Development method (TDD) is studied for use in developing embedded software. The required framework is written for the development environment Rhapsody. Integration of TDD into a classical development cycle, without necessitating a transition to agile methodologies of software development and required unit test framework to apply TDD to an object oriented embedded software development project with a specific development environment and specific project conditions are done in this thesis. A software tool for unit testing is developed specifically for this purpose, both to support the proposed approach and to illustrate its application. The results show that RhapUnit supplies the required testing functionality for developing embedded software in Rhapsody with TDD. Also, development of RhapUnit is a successful example of the application of TDD.

Hybrid renewable energy system was introduced to improve the individual renewable energy power system’s productivity and operation-ability. This circumstance has led towards an extensive technological study and analysis on the hybrid renewable energy system. The extensive technological study is conducted using many different approaches, but in this research the linear programming, artificial intelligence and smart grid approaches are studied. This thesis proposed a complete hardware system development, implementation and construction of real-time DC Hybrid Renewable Energy System for solar-wind-battery energy source integrated with grid network support. The proposed real-time DC HRES hardware system adopts the hybrid renewable energy system concept which is composed of solar photovoltaic, wind energy system, battery energy storage system and grid network support. The real-time DC HRES hardware system research work is divided into three stages. Stage 1 involves modelling and simulation of the proposed system using MATLAB Simulink/Stateflow software. During this stage, system’s methodological design and development is emphasised. The obtained results are considered as fundamental finding to design, develop, integrate, implement and construct the real-time DC HRES hardware system. Stage II is designing and developing the electronic circuits for the real-time DC HRES hardware system using PROTEUS software. Real time simulation is performed on the electronic circuits to study and analyse the circuit’s behaviour. This stage also involves embedded software application development for the microcontroller PIC16F877A. Thus, continuous dynamic decision-making algorithm is developed and incorporated into microcontroller PIC16F877A. Next, electronic circuits and continuous dynamic decision-making algorithm are integrated with the microcontroller PIC16F877A as a real-time DC HRES hardware system to perform real time simulation. The real-time DC HRES hardware system simulation results are studied, analysed and compared with the results obtained in Stage 1. Any indifference between the obtained results in Stage 1 and Stage 2 are analysed and necessary changes are made. Stage 3 involves integrating, implementation and construction of real-time DC HRES. The continuous dynamic decision-making algorithm is also incorporated into the real microcontroller PCI16F877A development board. Real-time DC HRES’s experimental results have successfully demonstrated the system’s ability to perform supervision, coordination, management and control of all the available energy sources with lease dependency on the grid network. The obtained results demonstrated the energy management and optimisation of the available energy sources as primary power source deliver.

O software vem se tornando cada vez mais o principal fator de custo no desenvolvimento de dispositivos embarcados. Atualmente, com o aumento aumentando da complexidade dos sistemas embarcados, se faz necessário o uso de técnicas e metodologias que, ao mesmo tempo, permitam o aumento da produtividade do desenvolvimento de software e permitam manipular as restrições dos sistemas embarcados como tamanho de memória, comportamento de tempo real, desempenho e energia. A análise e projeto orientado a objetos são altamente conhecidos e utilizados na comunidade de engenharia de software. Este paradigma auxilia no desenvolvimento e manutenção do software, porém apresenta uma signi cativa sobrecarga em termos de memória, desempenho e tamanho do código. Esta tese introduz uma metodologia e um conjunto de ferramentas que permitem o uso concomitante de orientação a objetos e os diferentes requisitos dos sistemas embarcados. Para atingir este objetivo, esta tese apresenta uma metodologia para exploração de software embarcado orientado a objetos que permite melhoria em diferentes níveis do processo de desenvolvimento do software baseado em diferentes implementações do mesmo processador. Os resultados da metodologia são apresentados baseados na aplicação de um tocador de MP3. / Software is increasingly becoming the major cost factor for embedded devices. Nowadays, with the growing complexity of embedded systems, it is necessary to use techniques and methodologies that can, at the same time, increase software productivity and manipulate embedded systems constraints - like memory footprint, real-time behavior, performance and energy. Object-oriented modeling and design is a widely known methodology in software engineering. This paradigm may satisfy software portability and maintainability requirements, but it presents overhead in terms of memory, performance and code size. This thesis introduces a methodology and a set of tools that can deal, at the same time, with object orientation and di erent embedded systems requirements. To achieve this goal, the thesis presents a methodology to explore object-oriented embedded software improving di erent levels in the software design based on di erent implementations with the same processor. The results of the methodology are presented based on an MP3 player application.

O software vem se tornando cada vez mais o principal fator de custo no desenvolvimento de dispositivos embarcados. Atualmente, com o aumento aumentando da complexidade dos sistemas embarcados, se faz necessário o uso de técnicas e metodologias que, ao mesmo tempo, permitam o aumento da produtividade do desenvolvimento de software e permitam manipular as restrições dos sistemas embarcados como tamanho de memória, comportamento de tempo real, desempenho e energia. A análise e projeto orientado a objetos são altamente conhecidos e utilizados na comunidade de engenharia de software. Este paradigma auxilia no desenvolvimento e manutenção do software, porém apresenta uma signi cativa sobrecarga em termos de memória, desempenho e tamanho do código. Esta tese introduz uma metodologia e um conjunto de ferramentas que permitem o uso concomitante de orientação a objetos e os diferentes requisitos dos sistemas embarcados. Para atingir este objetivo, esta tese apresenta uma metodologia para exploração de software embarcado orientado a objetos que permite melhoria em diferentes níveis do processo de desenvolvimento do software baseado em diferentes implementações do mesmo processador. Os resultados da metodologia são apresentados baseados na aplicação de um tocador de MP3. / Software is increasingly becoming the major cost factor for embedded devices. Nowadays, with the growing complexity of embedded systems, it is necessary to use techniques and methodologies that can, at the same time, increase software productivity and manipulate embedded systems constraints - like memory footprint, real-time behavior, performance and energy. Object-oriented modeling and design is a widely known methodology in software engineering. This paradigm may satisfy software portability and maintainability requirements, but it presents overhead in terms of memory, performance and code size. This thesis introduces a methodology and a set of tools that can deal, at the same time, with object orientation and di erent embedded systems requirements. To achieve this goal, the thesis presents a methodology to explore object-oriented embedded software improving di erent levels in the software design based on di erent implementations with the same processor. The results of the methodology are presented based on an MP3 player application.

abstract: Most embedded applications are constructed with multiple threads to handle concurrent events. For optimization and debugging of the programs, dynamic program analysis is widely used to collect execution information while the program is running. Unfortunately, the non-deterministic behavior of multithreaded embedded software makes the dynamic analysis difficult. In addition, instrumentation overhead for gathering execution information may change the execution of a program, and lead to distorted analysis results, i.e., probe effect. This thesis presents a framework that tackles the non-determinism and probe effect incurred in dynamic analysis of embedded software. The thesis largely consists of three parts. First of all, we discusses a deterministic replay framework to provide reproducible execution. Once a program execution is recorded, software instrumentation can be safely applied during replay without probe effect. Second, a discussion of probe effect is presented and a simulation-based analysis is proposed to detect execution changes of a program caused by instrumentation overhead. The simulation-based analysis examines if the recording instrumentation changes the original program execution. Lastly, the thesis discusses data race detection algorithms that help to remove data races for correctness of the replay and the simulation-based analysis. The focus is to make the detection efficient for C/C++ programs, and to increase scalability of the detection on multi-core machines. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2015