This optional course is offered to the students of the MS degree in Telecommunication, Computer and Communication Networks, Computer Science, Electronics Engineering and Nanotechnologies for ICT, and is held in the second semester of the final year.
The goal is to make the students able to write applications on embedded systems, using high level programming languages. To achieve this result, first the common characteristics of embedded systems are examined, mainly focusing on software environment and programming languages; then the Microsoft Micro Framework.NET environment and its associated C# object-oriented programming language is presented.
Finally, students will be involved in the design and implementation of an application for "embedded" systems using the Gadgeteer family devices.
Students with 8 credits will develop a more complex project.

Students will acquire a basic knowledge on "embedded" systems, on the Microsoft Visual Studio system development toolkit and on the object-oriented language C#. Moreover, they will learn how to manage a simple project, design, write and debug its software, and document it.

Programming techniques.

Lectures:

Embedded systems: common characteristics and operating environments
Linux embedded on ARM based systems
Microsoft Micro Framework.NET
The C# programming language
Application development in Micro Framework.NET



Laboratory:

Visual Studio for embedded systems
Design, implementation and debug of simple applications
Project: each student (or a small group of students) autonomously design an application to fulfill the user requirements specified by the teacher. In the lab, problems encountered during the implementation of the applications are discussed and solved.

The handouts of the lecture’s slides will be available on the course website

Only the project will be evaluated. The score takes into account the quality of the project presentation (duration 15’ with slides) and of its documentation, as well as the result of the final discussion on the project.