Middleware Software for Embedded Systems

Embedded systems with communicating and computing ability and multimedia functions work to every corner of daily life. However, the diverse architectures of embedded systems cause problems corresponding to reuse, portability and dependability. Middleware is a set of software that executes between operating system and application to solve stated problems. The advantages include unified interface, scalable and transparent abilities. This project investigates middleware technology on embedded systems and then proposes embedded middleware architecture to overcome the problems relating to reuse, portability, dependability and transparency. The proposed middleware consists of API module, service manager module and content manager module. The API module is designed to communicate with upper layer and lower layer by unified interface. Also, it provides a set of methods for solving problems of portability and dependability. The service manager module conducts a set of services for application. Moreover, it is able to automatically generate and deploy content information. The content manager module organizes and supplies information to the service manager module. Additionally, it solves transparent problem by ASCII and URL representation. In order to verify the feasibility for the proposed approach, we design the application of touch screen for embedded middleware system. Not only middleware but also embedded operating system, shell script, embedded graphical user interface and application are validated. Finally, we assess the functionality and integrated test of embedded middleware system by S3C2410 and XScale PXA270 system.