Topic Coverage

18-649 Distributed Embedded Systems

Carnegie Mellon University
Spring 2007

NOTES:

Files indicated as "(local)" have access restrictions, and can only be accessed from a CMU IP address.

Pointers to (IEEE) and (ACM) require subscriptions to on-line databases and are not free. CMU has a blanket site license; where possible pointers to freely available web material have been provided for non-CMU readers.

Pointers to the Embedded Systems Conference require free registration.

Some articles for Embedded Systems Programming are on-line for free. Others can be found on their back issue CD-ROM, which you can order from their web site.

"Kopetz" refers to the book: H. Kopetz, Real-Time Systems : Design Principles for Distributed Embedded Applications, Kluwer, 1997.

Note on types of reading:

• Required reading: this is testable material. We expect you to have read these and even know the main points of each item even if not discussed in class.
• Recommended reading: we think this will help you understand the material in class, especially if you are missing pieces or confused about a topic. But we won't be designing test questions to check if you have read it. We suggest you skim these and read the parts that seem helpful.
• Supplemental reading: this is purely if you want to know things beyond what is taught in the class. These are largely there for you to refer back to after you graduate, or to get you started if you want to learn more about a particular topic of interest on your own.

Lecture #1: Course Intro. & Foundations

Required Reading:

• Tennenhouse, D., "Proactive Computing", Communications of the ACM, May 2000, pg. 43. (ACM) (video) (local)
  A vision of future computing from a former head of DARPA ITO. "Let's get physical, let's get real, let's get out, let's reinvent computer science."

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 1
  (Includes discussion of the time constants discussed in the lecture, which are testable material.)
• Selic & Ward, "The challenges of real time software design", Embedded Systems Programming, October 1996, pg. 66. (local)
• Koopman, P., "Embedded System Design Issues -- The Rest of the Story", Proceedings of the 1996 International Conference on Computer Design, Austin, October 7-9 1996. ( local)

Supplemental Reading about Embedded Systems:

• Embedded System Design magazine
  A good general resource; many on-line articles
• Embedded Systems Conference (also has free proceedings on-line)
  A good industry-oriented conference for upgrading embedded skills. Worth registering to get free access to past conference proceedings
• Computers as Components: Principles of Embedded Computer Systems Design by Wayne Wolf.
  Excellent intro-level embedded systems book.
• Military and high-end embedded system research areas are sponsored by DARPA IPTO -- dig around this web site to see the latest in that area.
• National Academy Press, Embedded Everywhere.

Supplemental Reading about Control Theory:

• Gaddy, G., "How to write a PID Algorithm", Embedded Systems Programming, May 1997, pp. 62-72. (local)
  Someday you're going to have to write a control algorithm. This is a good how-to guide, although it's short on math.
• Crenshaw, J., "The Math of Control Systems", Embedded Systems Programming, Parts I, II, III, October-December 1993. (local part 1, part 2, part 3)
  OK, here's the math.
• Morgan, D., "The PID Filter", Embedded Systems Programming, July 2000, pp. 126-127. (local)
  A kinder, gentler introduction to math and implementation for PIDs.
• Stewart, "How to choose a sensible sampling rate," Embedded Systems Programming, July 2002. (Web | local)

• Miller, B., "A case for fuzzy logic", Embedded Systems Programming, December 1995, pp. 42-70. (local)
  When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical.

Lecture #2: Requirements

Required Reading:

• Brombach, R., Customer requirements and requirements analysis example, SAE 2001-01-0018, 2001. (local)
  Examples of requirements analysis for automotive lighting systems.

Suggested Reading:

• Wakeham, M., Requirements, the most overlooked and undervalued area of software development, March 2000 (local)
  Summary article, including chart suggesting that requirements errors are a big source of problems.
• IEEE Std. 830-1998. IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specification. (IEEE)
• Kopetz Chapter 4
• The King's Toaster. (local)
  A little levity, obviously written by a hardware engineer...
• Moore, A., "Capturing requirements and building solutions - why a single architecture is not enough", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (local)
• Tech Solutions, Software Development Standard Requirement Document, 2000.
  A discussion of requirements at a high level.
• Bahill, A.T. & F. Dean, Discovering System Requirements, 1997. (local)
  Substantial discussion of the requirements process. Note that requirements methods taught in this course are a small subset of the general requirements process.
• Faulk, S., Software Requirements: a tutorial. 1997. (local)
  A thorough discussion of sofwtare requiremetns.

Suggested Standards Reading:

• IEEE Std. 1223-1998. IEEE Guide for Developing System Requirements Specifications. (IEEE)

Supplemental Reading:

• CMU software engineering design studio project report: Ballistic SRS
  SRS created according to the team software process (TSP) by a student group that serves as an example from a real development project. Their assignment was to re-engineer some of my research software.
• Brackett, J., Software Requirements: SEI Curriculum Module SEI-CM-19-1.2, January 1990.
  Sketch of topics to be taught in software requirements, with an annotated bibliography.
• Gannsle, "Seven habits of highly defective programmers", Embedded Systems Programming, July 1998. (local)
  An ironic view of system development practices.
• Douglass, "Capturing real-time requirements", Embedded Systems Programming, November 2001. (local)
• Are Your Lights On? : How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is by Donald C. Gause, Gerald M. Weinberg, Dorset House; ISBN: 0932633161, 1991
  This is about problem solving approaches and requirements elicitation.
• Exploring Requirements : Quality Before Design by Donald C. Gause, Gerald M. Weinberg, Dorset House; ISBN: 0932633137, 1999
  A discussion with examples about how to get requirements right in the first place.
• Robertson, J. & S. Robertson, Volare requirements specification template. (local)
  A template for a requirements document.
• Willey, "Engineering Specs: The Road Map of Reliability Testing", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999, Session 310. (local)
  This is as much of a look at product development in general, although the focus is on reliability.

Lecture #3: Elevators

Required Reading:

• Taub, "Elevator Technology: inspiring many everyday leaps of faith," NY Times, December 3, 1998, page D-12.
  (local caution -- 9.4 MB)
• Paumgarten, N., "Up and then down," The New Yorker, April 21, 2008. (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Strakosch, George (ed.), The Vertical Transportation Handbook, 3rd Ed., Wiley, 1998
• Barker, F., Is 2000 feet per minute enough?, Elevator World, March 1997. (local)
  Discussion of advanced elevatoring performance techniques.
• Connecting mathematics with work and life: Scheduling Elevators (local)
  Why zoned elevators work.

• Roberts, W., "July 28, 1945 - Plane Hits Building - Woman Survives 75-Story Fall", Elevator World, March 1, 1996. (local)
  1945 crash of a B-25 bomber on a training flight into the Empire State Building in New York City; woman survived 75-story fall inside an elevator.

Lecture #4: UML-Based Design Process

Required Reading:

• Douglass, "Designing Real-Time Systems with UML - I," Embedded Systems Programming, March 1998 (local)
• Douglass, "Designing Real-Time Systems with UML - II," Embedded Systems Programming, April 1998 (local)
• Rational, UML quick reference (local)

Strongly recommended reading:

• Duby, "Getting Started with Unified Modeling Language", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 2000. (local)
• Douglass, "Designing Real-Time Systems with UML - III," Embedded Systems Programming, May 1998. (local)
• A more detailed UML reference summary (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Douglass, "The Unified Modeling Language", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (local)
• Douglass, "UML Class Diagrams", Embedded Systems Programming, February 2003. (local)
• Douglass, "UML Sequence Diagrams", Embedded Systems Programming, June 2003. (local)
• Douglass, "UML Statecharts", Embedded Systems Programming, September 2003. (local)
• Mellor, S., "The case for using use cases", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (local)
• Moore, A., "Capturing requirements and building solutions - why a single architecture is not enough", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (local)
• Full UML 1.5 specification (for hard-core junkies!): OMG Original (local)

• IBM UML resource center

Lecture #5: End-To-End Example

Required Reading:

• Douglass, "UML Statecharts," Embedded Systems Programming, January 1999, pp. 22-42 (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Murphy, N., "Control the source," Embedded Systems Programming, March 2004.
• Barr, M., "Code of conduct," Embedded Systems Programming, May 2002. (local)
  Proposes a simple set of minimal development activities.

Lecture #6: Distributed+Embedded

Required Reading:

• Kvaser AB, "What is a distributed embedded control system", (local)
  A brief look at centralized vs. embedded tradeoffs.
• Kassakian, J., H. Wolf, J. Miller & C. Hurton, "Automotive electrical systems circa 2005", IEEE Spectrum, August 1996, pp. 22-27. (IEEE) (local)
  Discusses potential evolution of automobiles to 42V DC instead of 12V DC.

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 2
• Ganssle, "Keep it small", Embedded Systems Programming, September 1998. (local)
  Argues that breaking a system into small pieces lowers total design complexity.

• Lecture on Time Triggered vs. Event Triggered Systems
  We don't have enough class meetings to cover all material, but if you read through this it should answer many questions on this topic.

Supplemental Reading:

• Selic, B., "Distributed software design: challenges and solutions," Embedded Systems Programming, Nov. 2000. (local)
  Good summary of the types of issues one sees in distributed systems.

Lecture #7: Embedded Communication Protocols

Required Reading:

• Upender & Koopman, Communication Protocols for Embedded Systems, Embedded Systems Programming, November 1994.
  This is a summary of much of the lecture material.

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 7
• Leen, Heffernan & Dunne, "Digital networks in the automotive vehicle," Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Dec. 1999. (local)
• Canosa, "Networking Protocols for Consumer Internet Appliances", Questra Corp, Fall 1999 Embedded Systems Conference. (local)
  Survey with more of a slant to consumer electronics rather than real time control.

Supplemental Reading: (most of this is material beyond topics we'll cover in class)

• Rushby, A Comparison of Bus Architectures for Safety-Critical Embedded Systems, Technical report, Computer Science Laboratory, SRI International, Sep. 2001 (local)
  (The portions describing the different protocols are the most relevant portions for our discussions.)
• Canosa, "Fundamentals of Firewire", Questra Corp., Spring 1999 Embedded Systems Conference. (local)
  A look at a protocol used for consumer video and high-bandwidth applications.
• Canosa, USB basics, Embedded Systems Programming, June-July 1997 (local: part 1; part 2)
  Universal Serial Bus -- mostly for I/O to desktop PCs; used with consumer product embedded systems.
• Echelon, Introduction to the LonWorks System, 1999. (local)
  This is a high-level look at the Echelon LonTalk protocol.
• Flynn, Understanding and using the I2C Bus, Embedded Systems Programming, November 1997. (local)
  A look at a low-end embedded network, mostly for use over very short distances (e.g., a single circuit board).
• Kalinksy & Kalinksy, "Introduction to I2C", Embedded Systems Programming, August 2001. (local)
• Digital Output techniques (local)
  Shows circuit techniques for driving loads, several of which are applicable to embedded network drivers as well.
• Kerkes, "Real-Time Ethernet," Embedded Systems Programming, January 2001. (local)
  A master-slave protocol running on top of Ethernet.
• Koopman, "Critical Embedded Automotive Networks," IEEE Micro, July 2002. (IEEE | local)
• Madan, "Overview of control networking technology," Echelon Corporation. (local)

Lecture #8: Reviews & SW Process

Required Reading:

• Ganssle, "Faster, better code," Embedded Systems Programming, August 1998. (local)

Strongly Suggested Reading (back-up material for lecture):

• Weigers, "Improving Quality Through Software Inspections," Software Development, April 1995. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Ambler, S., "Writing robust Java code: the Ambysoft coding standards for Java," Ambysoft, 2000. (local)
• Boehm, B. & Basili, V., "Software Defect Reduction Top 10 List", IEEE Computer, January 2001. (local)
  Concise top-10 format list of observations from trying to understand what causes defects in software projects. Good stuff.
• Brands, "Improving the software process for embedded systems," Fall Embedded Systems Conference, 1999. (local)
  Discusses adoption of CMM by an embedded systems group
• Bromback, R., Weinfurther, J., Fenderson, A. & King, D., "Robust embedded software begins with high-quality requirements", SAE 2002-01-0873 (local)
  List of design review checklist items based on experience at Ford
• Ganssle, A Firmware Development Standard, Version 1.2, Jan. 2004. (local)
• Madau, D., "Rules for defensive C programming," Embedded Systems Programming, December 1999. (local)
• Weigers, K., Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide, Addison-Wesley, 2001.

Supplemental Reading:

• Brenner, "Ten project Haiku", Amplifying Your Effectiveness, Dorset Press, 2000. (local)
  Insightful, but brief, commentary on project management
• Baldwin, "An Abbreviated C++ Code Inspection Checklist, 1992. (local)
  Code inspections and walkthroughs are the most cost-effective method for improving software quality.
• Ganssle, "On Management," Embedded Systems Programming, October 1999. (local)
• O'Neill, Peer Reviews. (local)
  Gives a general process for peer reviews. There are more comprehensive treatments available (e.g., a book by Gerry Weinberg), but this has the virtues of being brief and available on the Web.

Lecture #9: Testing of the Boeing 777

Required Reading:

• Yeh, "Design Considerations in Boeing 777 Fly-By-Wire Computers," 1998 (local)

Lecture #10: Testing Revisited

Required Reading:

• Whittaker, J., "What is software testing? And why is it so hard?", IEEE Software, Jan/Feb 2000. (local)

Suggested Standards Reading:

• IEEE Std 829-1998. IEEE standard for software test documentation. (IEEE)

Suggested Reading:

• Beatty, S., "Where Testing Fails, Part 1," Embedded Systems Programming (web supplement), August 2003. (local)
• Beatty, "Sensible software testing", Embedded Systems Programming, August 2000. (local)
  This is an intro level to software testing, and it focuses mostly on module/small program testing practice than overall testing methodologies.

Supplemental Reading:

• Ganssle, "Proactive Debugging," Embedded Systems Programming,, January 2001. (local)
• Umansky, Studs and Duds, The Washington Monthly, December 2001 (local)
  Why do Navy systems work while Army and Air Force systems fail? The answer might be earlier and more aggressive testing.

Lecture #11: CAN Protocol

Required Reading:

• Schill, Overview of the CAN Protocol, Embedded Systems Programming, September 1997. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Bosch, CAN Specification, Version 2, 1991. (local)
  This is the complete CAN specification. (note: "Robert Bosch GmbH" as an author is a German Corporation, not a person).
• Fredriksson, "CAN for critical embedded automotive networks," IEEE Micro, July 2002. (IEEE | local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Ferreira, J.; Pedreiras, P.; Almeida, L.; Fonseca, J.A., "The FTT-CAN protocol for flexibility in safety-critical systems," IEEE Micro, July 2002. (IEEE | local)
• Zeltwanger, "CANopen for embedded networking", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (IEEE | local)
  CANopen is an upper-level protocol stack built on top of CAN.
• Zuberi & Shin, "Real-time decentralized control with CAN," Proc. IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, Nov 1996.1996. (Web | local)

Lecture #12: CAN Performance

Required Reading:

• Ellims, Parker & Zurlo, "Design and analysis of a robust real-time engine control network," IEEE Micro, July/August 2002. (IEEE | local).

Suggested Reading:

• Stewart & Barr, "Rate Monotonic Scheduling," Embedded Systems Programming, March 2002. (Web | local)
  This is a quick brush-up if you've forgotten what RM is about.
• Tindell & Burns, Guaranteeing Message Latencies on Control Area Network (CAN), 1994. (local)
  Believe it or not, CAN opponents say it is impossible to predict maximum message response time in CAN; this article show that it is in fact possible to analytically bound the worst case.

Supplemental Reading:

• Dean & Upender, "Embedded Communication Network Pitfalls", Embedded Systems Programming, September 1997. (local)
  A summary of issues such as message clumping.

• Echelon, Enhanced media access control with LonTalk protocol, 1995. (local)
  BEWARE: the performance graphs are for uniformly distributed traffic; LonTalk pretty much breaks when it gets synchronized messages.
• Echelon, Determinism in industrial computer control network applications, 1995. (local)
  Talks in general terms about workarounds possible when using a collision-based protocol.
• Koopman, Time Division Multiple Access Without a Bus Master (JTDMA), 1995 technical report.
  (a robust, master-less communication protocol)

Lecture #14: Embedded System Engineering Economics

Required Reading:

• Ganssle, "Firmware basics for the boss (part1)," Embedded Systems Programming, Jan 2004
  Discusses firmware costs at beginning of part 1, then discusses good practices for development.

Suggested Reading:

• Turley, J., "Silicon 101," Embedded Systems Programming, January 2004. (local)
  Just the hardware side of the economics equation; see the Ganssle articles below for the software side.
• Ganssle, "Firmware basics for the boss (part1) (part2)," Embedded Systems Programming, Jan & Feb 2004
  Discusses firmware costs at beginning of part 1, then discusses good practices for development.

Supplemental Reading:

• Boehm, B., "The high cost of software," In E. Horowitz, editor, Practical Strategies for Developing Large Software Systems, pages 3-15. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1975. (local)

Lecture #15: Distributed Embedded Scheduling

Required Reading:

• Tindell, K., "Deadline Monotonic Analysis", Embedded Systems Programming, June 2000. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• If you didn't take 18-349, we strong suggest you read:
  Obenza, "Guaranteeing real-time performance using RMA," Embedded Systems Conference, Summer 2000 (local)
• Kopetz Chapters 9, 10, 11
• Ellison, K., "Scheduling algorithms for systems with hard deadlines," Embedded Systems Programming, April 1995 (local)
• Madan, Overview of Control Networking Technology, Echelon Corp. (local)
• Kalinsky, "A survey of task schedulers," Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 1999. (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Beatty, S., "Where Testing Fails, Part 2," Embedded Systems Programming (web supplement), August 2003. (local)
• Bruyer, D., "Sizing throughput requirements on real time systems", Embedded Systems Programming, Sept. 1999 (local).
  Another look at the timing problems caused by interrupt service routines and caches.
• Cantrell, "A look at the IEEE 1451 Standard", Circuit Cellar INK, February 1999. (local | local)
  A look at a serial bus optimized for smart/distributed I/O.
• Dean, A., Shen, J. P. "Techniques for Software Thread Integration in Real-Time Embedded Systems," Real-Time Systems Symposium, Madrid, Spain, December 2-4, 1998. (local)
  Discusses using a tool to automatically insert software I/O routines as a "guest" thread with other software in superscalar code to get polled I/O "for free".
• Dibble, P., "Real Time Implementation Techniques," Embedded Systems Programming, August 1995. (local)
• Hawley, "Selecting a Real-time Operating System," Embedded Systems Conferent, Fall 1999. (local)
• Lemieux, The OSEK/VDX standard, Embedded Systems Programming, March 2000 (local)
  This is a contender for an automotive operating system standard.
• Livani, M. & Kaiser, J., "EDF consensus on CAN bus access for dynamic real-time applications", IPPS/SPDP'98 Workshops Held in conjunction with the 12th International Parallel Processing Symposium and 9th Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing, 1998. (local)
• Ready, J. & D. Barnett, "Tradeoffs drive embedded OS choice in communications designs", Electronic Design, May 31, 1999, pp. 38-48. (local)
• Toeppe S. & Ranville, S., "Commercial RTOSes for Automotive Applications", Embedded Systems Programming, July 2000, pp. 108-123. (local)
  A look at RTOS & interrupt service overhead issues from an automotive perspective.

Lecture #17: Validation/Verification/Certification

Required Reading:

• Knutson, C., "Verification and Validation for Embedded Systems", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 2000. (local)

Standards:

• IEEE Std. 1012-1998, IEEE standard for software verification and validation . (IEEE)
• IEEE Std 1483-2000, IEEE standard for verification of vital functions in processor-based systems used in rail transit control . (IEEE)

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 12
• Boehm, B. & Basili, V., "Software Defect Reduction Top 10 List", IEEE Computer, January 2001. (local)
  Concise top-10 format list of observations from trying to understand what causes defects in software projects. Good stuff.
• Capitano, Anderson & Sverzhinsky, "Using accelerated aging to evaluate automobile components," Evaluation Engineering, May 2000. (local)
  Accelerated aging helps find the weak spots in a design.
• Desai, "UL 1998 - Software in programmable components", Embedded Systems Conference, Spring 2000. (local)
  This is a software standard for consumer products that might be safety critical.
• Jetley & Anderson, "Using static analysis to evaluate software in medical devices," Embedded.com, April 14 2008. (local)
• Jones, "Introduction to Lint," Embedded Systems Programming, May 2002. (local)
• MISRA automotive software safety documents
  Not really a process, but a set of checklist items to tell if you're covering the important parts, along with comprehensive backup reports to explain the isusses.
• Royal Technical Commision on Aviation, RTCA/DO-178B: Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification, Document, 1992. (local)
  This is the standard used for aviation software. It's a bit long, but skimming it will give you the idea of what designers of such systems do.
• Strock, "Look who's shaking", Evaluation Engineering, July 2000. (local)
  "Shake and bake" environmental testing is an important part of embedded product evaluation.

Supplemental Reading:

• Gluch, Obenza & Weinstock, "Model-based verification of software and firmware," Embedded Systems Conference, Spring 2000 (local)
  Describes model-based checking, which is a maturing tool-based approach to formal verification.
• Lakshminarayanan, V., "Minimizing Failures in electronic systems by design", EDN, August 3, 2000, pp. 87-104. (local)
• Palshikar, G., "An introduction to model checking", Embedded Systems Programming, March 2004. (local)

Lecture #18: Dependability for Embedded Systems

Required Reading:

• Kalinksy, D., "Design patterns for high availability," Embedded Systems Programming, August 2002. (local).
  A high level survey of various software fault tolerance approaches.

Standards:

• IEEE Std. 1413-1998, IEEE Standard Methodology for Reliability Prediction and Assessment for Electronic Systems and Equipment. (IEEE)
  A rather skimpy treatment at the high level, but it is at least a standard.

Suggested Reading:

• Avizienis, Laprie & Randell, "Fundamental Concepts of Dependability", 2001 (local)

• Kopetz Chapter 6
• Nelson, V., "Fault-tolerant computing: fundamental concepts", IEEE Computer, July 1990. (IEEE) (local)
• Blanchard et al., Systems Engineering and Analysis, 1990, chapter 13 on reliability. (local)
• Siewiorek, D., "Fault tolerance in commercial computers", IEEE Computer, July 1990. (IEEE) (local)
• Punches, K., "Design for Reliability: a checklist", EDN, November 21, 1996. (local)
  Gives a good intro-level overview to electronic reliability calculations and methods.
• Meyer, B., "Every little bit counts: toware more reliable software", IEEE Computer, November 1999. (IEEE) (local)
  A good synopsis of current techniques for reliable software.

Supplemental Reading:

• Lakshmin, F., "Minimizing failures in electronic systems by design", EDN, August 3, 2000. (local)
  Hardware failure mode discussion with some nice pictures.
• Reibman, A. & Veeraraghavan, M., "Reliability modeling: an overview for system designers", IEEE Computer, April 1991. (local)

Lecture #19: Critical Systems/Software Safety

Required Reading:

• Nancy G. Leveson and Clark S. Turner. An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents. IEEE Computer, Vol. 26, No. 7, July 1993, pp.18-41. ( local) (IEEE)

Suggested Reading:

• Gannsle, "Disaster", Embedded Systems Programming, May 1998. (local)
• Knutson, "Safety First: avoiding software mishaps", Embedded Systems Programming, November 2000. (local)
  This is an expansion on the themes of the Gannsle article and give some reasonable advice for how to think about designing critical systems.
• Storey, Safety-Critical Computer Systems, Addison-Wesley, 1996, Chapter 3. (local)
• Dunn, "Designing safety-critical computer systems," IEEE Computer, Nov. 2003. (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Brown, "Solving the software safety paradox," Embedded Systems Programming, Dec. 1998. (local)
• Czerny, et al., "A software safety process for safety-critical advanced automotive systems," 21st International System Safety Conference, 2003. (local)
• Ganssle, "As good as it gets," Embedded Systems Programming, Jan. 2002. (local)
• Leveson, N., "System safety in computer-controlled automotive systems", SAE Congress, March 2000. (local)
  This is an updated viewpoint, which concludes that ultimately the real problem is system-level design rather than just software design, and that improving software techniques will leave requirements defects as the largest source of problems.
• Nisley, "Life Support," Dr. Dobbs, November 2001. (local)
  An accessible argument about why embedded software is life critical and a caution about embedded internet security/safety.
• Tribble, "Software safety," IEEE Software, July 2002. (local)
  Short and sweet list of issues and predictions for the future from a software engineering point of view.
• Williamson, "Software safety and reliability," IEEE Potentials, Oct. 1997. (local)

• FMEA publications list.
• FMEA example criteria
• Catalog of software horror stories. (local)

• Leveson, "Software Safety: why, what, and how", Computing Surveys, June 1986. (local)
  You can think of this as the short version of the Safeware book mentioned below.
• Leveson, Safeware, Addison-Wesley, 1995
  Graduate level text. This is the standard work on software safety. It has a wider variety of material than Storey's book, but is writ at a somewhat higher level.
• Storey, Safety-Critical Computer Systems, Addison-Wesley, 1996, the whole book.
  Undergraduate text. This is a practical engineering approach for critical system design.

Lecture #20: Distributed Time

Required Reading:

• Hinerman, "Pardon Me, Do You Have the Time?", Embedded Systems Programming, August 2000. (local)
• Kopetz Section 3.2
  I was unable to find a reasonable non-book publication with the material we need to cover. A copy of Kopetz is on reserve via the library if you did not buy one.
  The really important pages to read are pp. 52-55, which you can find here: (local of 4 pages).

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 3
  We're covering the majority of this chapter in the lecture; if it is not crystal clear from the lecture then the book should help.

Supplemental Reading:

• A brief discussion of time standards.
• A minor horror story with follow-up.
• A discussion of Universal Time

Lecture #21: FlexRay protocol

Required Reading:

• FlexRay Introduction: http://www.ixxat.de/english/produkte/flexray/flexray_introduction.shtml (local)
• Murray, "Automotive groups divide on road to data bus," EE Times, 9/27/01. (web | local)

Lecture #22: Software/System Engineering for Critical Systems

Required Reading:

• Redmill, "IEC 61508: Principles and use in the management of safety," Computing & Control Engineering Journal, Oct 1998. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Fishman, "They write the right stuff", Fast Company, December 1996. (local)
  Story about how the space shuttle team creates essentially perfect software.

• Koopman, P., "Critical Embedded Automotive Networks," IEEE Micro, July-August 2002.
• Koopman, P. (ed.), Special Issue on Critical Embedded Automotive Networks, IEEE Micro, July-August 2002. (Issue is available from: IEEE Micro Archives; IEEE Xplore Archives

Lecture #23: Humans as a System Component

Required Reading:

• Murphy, "Safe systems through better user interfaces," Embedded Systems Programming, August 1998. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Tilley, A., The Measure of Man and Woman, Whitney Library of Design, 1993.
  Sample tables available locally (.pdf)
  An update of a classic book-- one-stop shopping for anthropometry.

Supplemental Reading:

• Nielsen, J., Usability Engineering, Academic Press Professional, 1993.
  Chapter 5 has a list of usability heuristics.
• Maddox, "Designing Medical Devices to Minimize Human Error," Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry Magazine, May 1997. (local)
• NUREG-0700, Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, (Web | local)

Lecture #24: Embedded Internet & Embedded Security

Required Reading:

• Koopman, P., Morris, J. & Narasimhan, P., "Challenges in Deeply Networked System Survivability," Nato Advanced Research Workshop On Security and Embedded Systems, August 2005. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Morgan, S., "Jini to the Rescue", IEEE Spectrum, April 2000, pp. 44-49. (IEEE) (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Casterline, R., "Serving up Web pages from an Embedded Device", Embedded Systems Conference, Fall 2000. (local)
• Canosa, "Network Protocols for the Home", Embedded Systems Programming, November 2000. (local)
• Fisher, "Protecting Binary Executables", Embedded Systems Programming, February 2000. (local)
• Koopman, P., "Embedded System Security," IEEE Computer, July 2004. (local)

Lecture #25: Society & Ethics

Required Reading:

• McFarland, "Ethics and the safety of computer systems," IEEE Computer, January 1991. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Costlow, "The ethical organization," IEEE Spectrum, Dec. 2002 (IEEE | local)
• "GM and the Law", The Economist, July 17, 1999, pg. 16 (local)
  GM was awarded damages over a cost-driven feature vs. risk decision.
• Ganssle, "Who's at fault when code kills?", Embedded.com, Nov 24, 2004. (local)
• Godbold, "What has ethics to do with me? I'm an engineer," Engineeringing Management Journal, April 1999. (IEEE) (local)
  Brief summary of strengths and weaknesses of different ethical frameworks; a few guidelines for resolving uncertain situations.
• Gotterbarn, "How the new software engineering code of ethics affects you," IEEE Software, Nov/Dec 1999. (local)
• Koopman, "On being the bearer of bad news", The Institute, IEEE, vol. 20, no. 6, pg. 15, June 1996.
  Thoughts on how to handle being stuck in a difficult professional situation -- see, it's that scar over there...

• IEEE Code of Ethics
• Software Engineering Code of Ethics (version 5.1)
• ACM Code of Ethics

Lecture #: Coding Theory Lite

Required Reading:

• Crenshaw, "Implementing CRCs," Embedded Systems Programming, January 1992. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Koopman, P. & Chakravarty, T., "Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) Polynomial Selection For Embedded Networks," DSN04, June 2004. (local)
• Barr, "Leveraging the 'Net", (Parity & Checksums), Embedded Systems Programming,, November 1999. (local)
• Barr, "For the Love of the Game" (CRCs), Embedded Systems Programming, December 1999. (local)
• Barr, "Slow and steady never lost the race" (CRCs),Embedded Systems Programming, January 2000. (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Williams, R. A painless guide to CRC error detection algorithms, 1993. (local)
• Credit Card Validation - Check Digits (Web | local)
• CRC Pitstop (http://www.ross.net/crc/)

Lecture #: TTP protocol

Required Reading:

• Bannatyne, R., Time Triggered Protocol: TTP/C, Embedded Systems Programming, March 1999. (local)

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 8
  (Note: Kopetz invented TTP, so he is the authoritative source for TTP info)
• Kopetz, H., Holzmann, M. & Elmeureich, W., "A Universal Smart Transducer Interface: TTP/A", TU Vienna, July 1999.
• Maier, Bauer, Stoger & Poledna, "Time-triggered architecture: a consistent computing platform," IEEE Micro, July-August 2002. (IEEE | local)
• Koopman, P., "Critical Embedded Automotive Networks," IEEE Micro, July-August 2002. (local)

Supplemental Reading:

• Hedenetz, B. & R. Belschner, Brake-by-wire without Mechanical Backup by Using a TTP-Communication Network, SAE #981109, 1998.

TTP Vs. FlexRay http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010927S0080

Additional relevant topic areas not covered in this course:

Abstraction & Architecture

Strongly Suggested Reading:

• Garlan, D. & M. Shaw, An introduction to software architecture, Carnegie Mellon University Technical Report, CMU-CS-94-166, January 1994. (local)
  This is a seminal paper on the area. Read it for high-level understanding through Chapter 3 -- the rest is details.

Suggested Reading:

• Kopetz Chapter 4
• Douglass, B., "Real Time Design Patterns", Embedded Systems Conference Fall 1999. (local)
  Gives a catalog of design patterns for real time embedded systems
• Koopman, Models for Distributed Embedded System Design, 1996. (local)
  Brief discussion of analytic, simulation, and prototype models.

Supplemental Reading:

• de Champeaux, D., D. Lea, & P. Faure, Object-Oriented System Development, 1993.
  Complete book on OO Design on-line.
• Rechtin, E. & M. Maier, The Art of Systems Architecting, CRC Press, 1996.
  One of the few books that talks about how to pick the right architecture for your system.

Software Management & Metrics:

• Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month, Datamation, 1974. (local)
  This is a magazine-article-length version of the famous book.
• Ganssle, "Metrics for developers", Embedded Systems Programming, June 2002. (local)
• Ganssle, "Measuring bugs," Embedded Systems Programming, July 2002. (local)
• Briggs, "Manage your embedded project," Embedded Systems Programming, April 2000. (local)
• Ganssle, "Keep it small," Embedded Systems Programming, September 1998. (local)
• Gannsle, "On Management", Embedded Systems Programming, October 1999. (local)
  Discussion of management issues for embedded software projects.

TCN (Train Control Network):

• Kirrmann, H., "The IEC/IEEE Train Communication Network", IEEE Micro, March 2001, pp. 81-92. (local)
• Fabri, A., Nieva, T., Umiliacchi, P., "Use of the Internet for Remote Train Monitoring and Control: the ROSIN Project," Rail Technology '99. (local)

Software & System Engineering:

• Boehm, "A spiral model of software development and enhancement", IEEE Computer, May 1988, pg. 61. (local)
• Nossal & Lang, "Model-based system development", IEEE Micro, July 2002. (IEEE | local)
• Hewson, J., "Cross-functional pair programming," Embedded Systems Programming, January 2004.
  (For another take, see also: Ganssle, J., "XP deconstructed," Embedded Systems Programming, January 2004.
• Paulk, "Using the software CMM in small organizations", The Joint 1998 Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference and the Eighth International Conference on Software Quality, Portland, Oregon, 13-14 October 1998, pp. 350-361. (local).
  Gives advice for using CMM when you have a small project.
• IEEE standard for application and management of the systems engineering process, IEEE std 1220-1998, December 8, 1998. (local)
  This is a recommended practice for system engineering and project management, and in general is a comercial practice version of the older MIL-STD 499.
• Stewart, "Thirty pitfalls for real-time software developers, Part 1", Embedded Systems Programming, October 1999. (local)
  Stewart, "More pitfalls for real-time software developers", Embedded Systems Programming, November 1999. (local)
  A useful list of pitfalls in embedded software development.

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