Course syllabus

Course-PM

EEN090 Embedded control systems lp4 VT23 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering

Contact details

Examiner and lecturer

Bengt Lennartson, phone: 031-772 3722, bengt.lennartson@chalmers.se

Teaching Assistant

Wenhao Lu, wenhaol@chalmers.se

Exam Office

Room EDIT 3342, studadm.e2@chalmers.se

Course purpose:

The aim of the course is to introduce modeling, specification, and analysis of embedded control systems. Embedded control systems are usually distributed systems and consist of different components interacting with each other.  Moreover, they are usually complex and safety-critical. Thus, it is important to establish that system works correctly during the design phase.

After this course, the student should be able to:

1. Describe the general characterization of embedded and distributed systems.
2. Explain the concept related to distributed real-time systems, including concurrency and multi-tasking and multi threads and shared resource.
3. Describe the challenges in the real-time system including deadlock and starvation and the possible solutions including scheduling, mutual exclusion, and critical section.
4. Explain communication protocols for embedded systems.

The following concepts will be described at different levels in the course: task, critical regions, mutual exclusion and synchronization, deadlock, timing constraints ("soft/hard" systems), schedulability analysis for systems with static and dynamic task priorities, discrete event systems including verification, synthesis, and optimization.

Lecture Program

Lecture nr/ Period week	Date, Room	Content
L1, Pw 1	Tuesday, March 21, 10-12, Jupiter122	Introduction, RTS Ch 1.
L2, Pw 1	Wednesday, March 22, 13-16, Svea118	Discrete event systems. DES Ch 3, pp.53-67, Ch 8 pp. 119-125.
L3, Pw 1	Friday, March 24, 10-12, Jupiter122	Microcontrollers, RTS Ch 3.
L4, Pw 2	Monday, March 27, 13-16, Jupiter122	Multithreading, RTS Ch 6, Scheduling, RTS Ch 7.
L5, Pw 3	Monday, April 17, 13-15, Zoom	Scheduling, RTS Ch 7.
L6, Pw 3	Thursday, April 20, 10-12, Svea130	Worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis
L7, Pw 4	Monday, April 24, 13-15, Svea130	Petri nets, synchronization
L8, Pw4	Friday, April 28, 8-10, Delta	Mutual exclusion, semaphores
L9, Pw5	Tuesday, May 2, 8-10, Jupiter121	Formal verification
L10, Pw5	Wednesday, May 3, 13-15, Gamma	Optimization
L11, Pw6	Monday, May 8, 13-16, Svea118	Supervisory control
L12, Pw6	Wednesday, May 10, 13-15, Svea118	Real-time operating system (RTOS)
L13, Pw7	Tuesday, May 16, 10-12, Jupiter122	Inputs & outputs, bus communication
L14, Pw8	Monday, May 22, 13-15, Jupiter243	Summary

 

Exercise Program

Exercise nr/ Period week	Date, Room	Content
E1, Pw 1	Thursday, March 23, 10-12, Jupiter122	Discrete event systems
E2, Pw 2	Tuesday, March 28, 10-12, Jupiter122	Posix and multithreading
E3, Pw 3	Tuesday, April 18, 8-10, Jupiter121	Scheduling
E4, Pw 3	Wednesday, April 19, 10-12, Jupiter121	Support Assignment 1
E5, Pw 4	Tuesday, April 25, 08-10, Jupiter122	Worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis
E6, Pw 5	Wednesday, May 3, 15-17, Gamma	Synchronization and input-output
E7, Pw5	Thursday, May 4, 10-12, Jupiter122	Canceled
E8, Pw6	Tuesday, May 9, 10-12, Jupiter122	Formal verification and supervisory control
E9, Pw7	Monday, May 15, 10-12, Jupiter121	Support Assignment 3
E10, Pw8	Monday, May 22, 15-17, Jupiter 243	Old exam

TimeEdit Chalmers - EEN090 

Home Assignments

	Submission date	Content
A1, Pw 3	Friday, April 21	Posix and multithreading
A2, Pw 6	Wednesday, May 10	Optimization
A3, Pw 7	Wednesday, May 17	Kernel and FreeRTOS

 

Course literature

D.W. Harder, J. Zarnett, V. Montaghami, and A. Giannikouris
A practical introduction to real-time systems for undergraduate engineering (RTS), see Files Literature.

E. A. Lee and S. A. Seshia
Introduction to Embedded Systems (IES), see Files Literature.

K. Tindell 
Real-Time Systems and Fixed Priority Scheduling (FPS), see Files Literature

B. Lennartson
Discrete Event Systems (DES), see Files Literature.

 

Changes made since the last occasion

A new assignment on optimal scheduling will replace last year's first robot assignment.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

• Describe the general characterization of embedded and distributed systems.
• Explain the concept related to distributed real-time systems, including concurrency and multi-tasking and multi threads and shared resource.
• Describe the challenges in real-time systems including deadlock and starvation and the possible solutions including scheduling, mutual exclusion, and critical section.
• Explain communication protocol for embedded systems.

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen Study plan

Examination form

The students are evaluated through a final written exam (4.5 hec) and a compulsory laboratory assignment (3.0 hec). 

The final grade, according to the scale Fail (U) or Pass (3, 4, 5), is given based on the individual grades for the written exam.

There are three individual assignments in the course.  Additional information regarding these assignments will later be found on the Assignment page.