Embedded Systems are systems that are composed of hardware and software parts that are developed for a special task within a bigger system.

Examples for such systems are smart phones, digital cameras, robot controls, set-top boxes etc. The application areas of such systems are growing rapidly. As these systems are not only composed of application software, this lab exercises the combined development of hardware and software, as it is typical for embedded systems. A Fischertechnik robot and a hardware development board are used as target system.

The schedule of the lab is as follows:

At first, the abstract behavior of the system is described. The task is to have the robot follow a small black line on a bright background by using photoresistors. This specification is transformed into a software for a microcontroller. The microcontroller is available as a hardware description language (HDL). To connect it to periphery (motors and photoresistors), additional parts have to be written in a hardware-description language. This shows the usage of typical development- and design tools for simulation and synthesis. After combining the hardware and the software parts, the robot is tested against the initial specification. Furthermore, an intelligent searching algorithm has to be implemented to find the line when it get lost.

Prerequisites: Base knowledge in VHDL and C/C++ programming.

Targetaudience: This lab is suitable for electrical engineering students, computer science students and those who have interest in embedded systems design.