Symposium: Engineering Embedded Runtimes

Facilitators: John Cunningham (Band XI), Doug Schaefer (Wind River)
Location: Eclipse Summmit Europe 2008 - Ludwigsburg, Germany
Time: Tuesday, 14:00-18:00 | Seminarräume 1-4

Materials

Symposium Abstract (192 kB)
Symposium Slides (400 kB)
Executive Summary Powerpoint Template(432 kB)

Position Papers Submitted

Marcus Harringer, MicroDoc (48 kB)
Anna Dushistova & Dina Kommar, Montavista Software (76 kB)
Torkild Ulvoy Resheim, Atmel (168 kB)
Patrick Dempsey, Band XI International (176 kB)
Raul Barrena, Gemesys Group (8 kB)

As embedded platforms become increasingly more powerful, engineers are employing them to support ever more complex applications in various embedded problem spaces, whether telematics, military, industrial control, or supply chain management. These new efforts challenge engineers to manage this complexity, which is presented as functional richness and the integration of heterogeneous technologies without sacrificing the performance, reliability and integrity required from embedded systems.

  • Provisioning: How can we best test, develop, deploy and manage configurations of thousands of mobile devices roaming in the wild? Is the new p2 technology the answer to the need to provision to these devices?
  • Integration: How can we reliably integrate and deploy mixed technology platforms that include C/C++ native code, scripts, configuration and data files, and Java code bundles?
  • Connectivity: How do we enable these devices to communicate off-board in an economical, bandwidth aware manner?
  • Interfacing: What tools and approaches can be used to interface with sensors and actuators, whether through a bus architecture, such as J1939, or direct GPIO or serial connections?
  • Usability: How can we develop user interfaces that retain their industrial character, without imposing mini recreations of desktop metaphors on users in coarser environments?
  • Tooling and Requirements: Does the current Eclipse tooling offer sufficient support to meet the accelerating challenges faced by embedded engineers and what gaps need to be filled? Are there labor-intensive activities that could benefit from additional tooling? Can requirements be captured and used for verification using the existing tools?
  • Runtimes: Can we really deploy Equinox as the application runtime platform for embedded systems? How does deploying embedded Java applications differ from embedded C/C applications? Can we mix and match as needed?

Perhaps many of the specific answers to these questions will vary across industry vertical markets. Can we isolate a set of common challenges that can be addressed?

This symposium is looking for people with experience and interest in addressing any of the above questions that face embedded systems engineers using Eclipse both as a development environment and as a runtime platform. To participate, you must submit a position paper describing your prior experience and challenges using Eclipse and Equinox for embedded systems. We will use the position papers as part of the symposium format.