|
ERS's embedded technology is
especially well suited for applications that employ many very small
micro-controllers that are severely constrained by processor utilization,
memory size, power consumption, and cost. The key to ERS's component
solution is the ability to adapt the framework to the specific needs of a
domain, application, or hardware environment.
The technology is suitable for applications ranging from the smallest
Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) to local-area wired and wireless
networks of hundreds of independent sensors and actuators, as used for
distributed control and wireless smart sensing.
There are many advantages to using component-based technology,
including significant reduction in development cost by reusing components,
easy rapid prototyping and shorter time-to-market, ability to modify and
configure applications remotely and on-the-fly, improved robustness of
applications, and the ability to use model-based development tools to
simulate, generate and integrate components.
Our in-depth knowledge of real-time systems theory and practice
includes addressing issues related to scheduling analysis, inter-process
communication, measuring execution time, priority inversion, debugging
timing problems, and other common and not-so-common problems associated
with building embedded systems. Our paper entitled 25 Most Common Mistakes
with Real-Time
Software Development, presented at the 1999 and 2000 Embedded Systems
Conferences , highlights the breadth of our expertise in this area,
while our publications
and skills show the depth of our expertise.
Our port-based object (PBO) approach was designed especially for
small embedded systems, which include 8-bit and 16-bit processors with as
little as 1K of RAM. ZEE technology is also scalable to higher performance processors such
as 32-bit microcontrollers and digital signal processors. ERS's
technology promises extremely diverse applicability across a wide range of
verticals, allowing tradeoffs that include performance,
quality-of-service, cost, and system lifetime in accordance with
application requirements. This swappable component architecture
utilizes reusable modules to provide hard or soft real-time
guarantees using deterministic distributed behavior. Existing
components include, but are in no way limited to: real-time data delivery,
location support, dynamic reconfiguration, programmability, multi-hop
communication, data aggregation, and analog and digital sensor
integration. The only work required for developing new applications
is to plug in the required components and specify desirable traits such as
reporting periods, sensory event thresholds, or system energy
requirements. Aside from these basic components the ZEETM framework
encourages additional opportunities to expand and augment this collection
of supported features at a minimal cost.
|
