INE5346 - Software/Hardware Integration - 2002/1

Program

Schedule

Mailing list

Students

Practical Work

Warner Bros' Red Planet movie depicts interesting scenarios for academic discussion, our particular interest being software/hardware integration. After having overpopulated Earth and depleted its resources, mankind (sure, we'll all be Americans by 2050) sets out to colonize Mars. A series of "Hollywoodian disasters" brings the mission crew into a couple of challenging software/hardware integration duties:

1. After a disastrous landing on the red planet, the crew tries desperately to send a message to the spaceship in orbit so mission control gets to know they are still alive.
   
   Problem: their high-tech personal assistants get damaged during landing and are no longer able to send.
   
   Solution: go for Pathfinder (by that time a 50-year old scrap metal), take its radio out and wire it to the PDA (electronic incompatibility isn't a point here: hardware doesn't change much in 50 years). Afterwards, you just have to reconfigure/reprogram the PDA to work with such an exotic radio. Of course you have a screwdriver!
2. The spaceship is about to head back for Earth and the crew on Mars would like to get a lift. That is, they must go back to solve the life-on-Mars puzzle and save mankind. Unfortunately, their return vehicle has been eaten by hungry bugs and they have to fly an old Russian rocket that failed to take over many years before.
   
   Problem: the rocket's navigation system is broken.
   
   Solution: plug the refurbished PDA to the rocket control system and have a new flying control program downloaded. You need more than a screwdriver this time, since a crazy killer-robot disagrees on the cold-war-over issue and doesn't want to see American astronauts flying such an ugly Russian rocket.

Much to your surprise, the crew succeeds in saving mankind, doing their hardware/software integration duties in a couple of ours without even disposing of a gdb. I can only conclude their grandparents attended a very good software/hardware integration seminar as they were studying computer science.

And what about you? Would you be able to save mankind?

Well, in order to help you answering this question, this edition of software/hardware integration seminar will feature a realistic simulation of the previously described scenario.

What is what?

• Mission Control
  The seminar's lab will be the mission control. You can tackle on anything you find here, including the Internet.
• Spaceship
  An old Intel-based notebook will play the spaceship. Here you have a fully-fledged Linux except WaveLAN driver (mission didn't considered using Pathfinder's old radio). The driver is up to you. Downloading a Linux driver will only keep you away from the killer robot if you are able to explain ALL of its MINOR details.
• PDA
  It's hard to imagine what a 2050's PDA will look like, but for now an iPAQ running Linux should do. Just like the spaceship, the PDA wasn't prepared to handle WaveLAN. Moreover, your Linux installation won't cover Infrared Port, which is your communication means to the Russian rocket. Both drivers are up to you. Keep an eye on the killer robot!
• Pathfinder's Radio
  The radio that was taken out of the Pathfinder will be performed by an ordinary WaveLAN PCMCIA card.
• Russian Rocket
  Considering our department budget restrictions, building a real rocket for the software/hardware integration seminar could be a bit exaggerated. Therefore we will take on an off-the-shelf LEGO Mindstorms kit to build a rocket that runs instead of flying. Since the mission didn't plan to go back home on a broken Russian rocket, you won't have any software on the RCX but a boot loader. Your best choice here would be PURE but EPOS should also do the work with the advantage of local help.
• Killer Robot
  That's me!

Students' Work

1. A device driver for IEEE802.11b wireless networks, by Cleyton Andre Pires, Eduardo Afonso Billo, and Thiago Robert C dos Santos.
2. Integration of the IEEE802.11b device driver within Linux 2.4.x, by Fernanda Emanuella Silveira, Sérgio Carlos Castelani Júnior, and Tiago Stein D'Agostini.
3. A device driver for infrared networks for Linux 2.4.x, by Alvaro Cesar Garcia H Pereira, Gustavo e Santo Hartmann e Julio Cesar Moriguti.
4. A set of EPOS abstractions to build an executive for the Lego RCX (part I), by Bruno Maluche Neto, Carlos Alexandre Matias, Carlos Eduardo Gesser e Fauze Valerio Polpeta.
5. A set of EPOS abstractions to build an executive for the Lego RCX (part II), by Alexandre Schulter, Olaf Karatschai, Marcio Rodrigo de Oliveira.
6. An infrared network abstraction for EPOS on the Lego RCX, by Luiz Carlos B Kos Lassance, Paulo Manoel Mafra e Marcos Aurelio Dias.
7. A low overhead communication protocol for infrared networks, by Angelo dos Santos Melo, Carlos Alberto Nakazawa, Marcio Juliandrei Marafon.
8. RCX control program, by Ricardo Winck and Felipe Pompeo.