Work in progress - multi-disciplinary real-time and systems laboratory and course sequence

Small electronic products for the mass market are increasingly incorporating programmable components. The software in these devices has constraints that are markedly different from software designed for a general-purpose computer. Most computing curricula deal almost exclusively with developing software for that general-purpose class. Real-time and embedded systems have increased in complexity; they no longer lie within a single discipline. Developers now must be cognizant of software engineering design methodologies and underlying hardware constraints. RIT is addressing this by developing a three-course sequence of cross-disciplinary real-time and embedded systems courses. We are teaching these courses in a studio-lab environment teaming computer engineering and software engineering students. The courses introduce students to programming both microcontrollers and more sophisticated targets, use of a commercial real-time operating system and development environment, modeling and performance engineering of these systems, and their interactions with physical systems.