1. Embedded Systems & Controls Carving Out a Niche as a Mac SE Grad Kevin Dagenais November 15 2007

2. Your Presenter McMaster SE 2003 McMaster MASc 2005 –Supervised by M.V.M –Theses: Alternate Fuel Injection Control ZENON Environmental/GE Water and Process Hy-Drive Technologies Ltd. –Embedded Systems Designer –Software Team Leader

3. State Machines and Medical Supplies We have a history –Intro to Professional Eng 2004-2005 –I’m sorry if I tricked you into this! 3 Years later… Your Feedback… Please!

4. Relevant Projects Design of a Configurable Alternate Fuel Injection Controller Embedded Controls Development for A Hydrogen Generating System Design of gas flow regulation control system. (Just Underway) Telematics Integration, customized reporting.

5. A Green Alternative Natural Gas and Propane both burn cleaner than Petroleum. These fuels are usually more economical. Because they are Gaseous, injection pulses are longer. A viable solution for localized fleet operators (Taxi companies, Driving Schools).

6. Injection Control Fuel Injector Control Platform: PIC 18F452 Hard Real Time Constraints

7. Injection Control System Overview

8. Main Loop Evaluation of Safety and Diagnostic Conditions. Analogue Conversions State variable updates

9. ISR Determine Cause of Interrupt Disable Interrupts and clear flags Handle event –Change on Injection Signals (Ext I/O) –Pulse Elongation complete (Timer Period Match) – Unhandled Exception (Timer Overflow)

10. Hydrogen Based Diesel Enrichment via Electrolysis. Improved Fuel Economy Reduced Exhaust Emissions Improved Horse Power

11. A Software Box (That makes Hydrogen) 2 Channel Safety with Monitoring PID Pressure control PWM Heater control Telematics Integration Co-operative Multitasking OTAC Periodic and Failure based reporting Deployed Study performance GPS Integtration

12. What is out of your control that Affects Timing? Characteristics of the related physical process Hard Real Time Constraints Frequency of Oscillation, Instruction Set, Pipeline Length Available On Chip Peripherals –Interrupt handler speed, available interrupts, max # of vectors –Timer speed, size, scaling, number, interaction Sensing response time, –TAQ, TAC, Sensing Mechanism External communication interfaces –Including on-board peripherals Total processor workload The Rest is up to you!!.... (Is there anything left??)

13. The Stuff that’s Left System/State Design Use of Interrupts Extent of branching and conditionals in key processes Extent of context switching Use of Assembly code Task prioritization and scheduling On-Chip peripheral configuration settings Speed vs. Size Task Offloading

14. Verifying Time Properties Design for Inspection, Inspect to Verify! Limit the scope of inspection using interrupts and appropriate priority assignment. Let the compiler documentation do the talking… Lose the printf’s, and all other debugging constructs. Scope it!

15. When Your Fastest Isn’t Fast Enough Salvation Through Hardware Turn Analogues Inputs to Digitals Move Services off Chip to Dedicated Devices (Flexibility is about choice) Look for opportunities to trade size for speed.

16. I Never Thought… Anyone would read my thesis. My Thesis includes complete code (PIC 18F452-C) including: Full Documentation Examples of A/D conversion Interrupt Handling Serial Communication Hard Real time control It is available in the departmental office, and in the library.

17. Closing Thoughts Write the PPE Early, but not in Summer. Make good friends with your Hardware Guy/Gal. The Man Month isn’t mythical when you work on Salary. IntelliSense will only get you so far, and Nowhere in embedded.