NET3001-F11 Course Page

Instructor

Times and Locations

Course Outline

Course Notes

Assignments

Grading, Midterm & Exams

Resources (new page)

Change list

Exam

Dec 7, 2011, 11am in AP136

Instructor:

Pat Beirne (patb@sce.carleton.ca)

Office hours:

Tuesdays & Thursdays from 1pm until 2pm and by appointment, AP230A

Class Times & Locations

Lectures Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:30 until 13:00 from Sept 8^th to Dec 1^st inclusive
Labs Tuesday from 14:00 (2pm) until 17:00 (5pm), Sept 13^th to Dec. 1^st inclusive

Exam

will be held in AP136, Monday Dec 5, 11am (3 hours)

Web Pages

This page, of course. As an experiment, we also may communicate through Facebook group called Carleton-NET3001

Course Requirements:

There is no textbook for this course; the information is all in the notes and the reference web pages.

Every student is required to use a personal laptop computer for the labs and assignments of this course. Windows (any) or Linux laptops are supported; if you have a Mac, you will need to use Parallels/VMWare/VirtualBox and run through the virtual machine.

Course Description & Outline

Real-time systems are designed to interact with their environment in a time-critical manner. NET3001 provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of these systems. It also presents different issues associated with using a single processor computer system to implement a real-time system. The objectives of this course are to:

introduce the development of real-time embedded systems
introduce hardware interrupts as the sources of asynchronous events
introduce the concept of concurrency in a single processor computer system using the event, message and dispatcher model
provide practical laboratory exercises that reinforce an event-driven perspective in the development of embedded real-time systems

The course will provide practical experience in low-level programming in an embedded platform. A special programming system has been developed for this course, containing an ARM/Cortex-M3 (the STM32) microcontroller and a host of specialized input/output devices and interfaces.

The development will be done on the Eclipse IDE platform, using both Assembly Language and C. The student will learn to program on both a device simulator and an actual device hosted by the MTS2 Project Board.

Roughly, the course breaks down into: one quarter assembly language, one quarter C coding, one quarter interrupt coding and one quarter event-driven event-driven programming. The concepts that will be covered are applicable to a wide range of computer systems, programming languages, and applications.

There is no specific textbook required for this course. However, several PDF files can be found in the Resources section below.

Lab Equipment

Each student will be given a NET3001 MTS2 board for use during the term. The student can bring the MTS2 board home; I expect the student to take reasonable care of the board assigned to him/her.

The MTS board will be used for all assignments and labs.

Each student will be required to leave a $200 security deposit on receipt of the MTS2 board. This deposit will be returned on Dec 1^st upon returning the MTS2 board to the lab personnel. [Boards which are returned in a non-functional state will have a repair fee deducted from the security deposit.]

Lecture schedule (tentative)

1	Sept 8	Course objectives, organization and administration; Lab information. Introduction : What is an embedded system? What is a real time system? Microprocessors vs. Microcontrollers. Programmer’s Model of the ARM/Cortex-M3: Instruction Set, Memory, I/O. Notes
2	Sept 13	Introduction to the Eclipse IDE. Programming the ARM/Cortex-M3 assembly language. Instruction Set: format, addressing modes. Basic operations: data transfer,. Notes Lab 1: Review of C coding techniques. Installing Eclipse on your laptop.
3	Sept 15	Arithmetic, overflow, assembler program definition Directives. Basic operations (cont.): multiple-byte operations (carry condition register). Assembly code in Eclipse. Notes and more notes
4	Sept 20	Symbol table; Control flow: conditions, jumps. Basic operations: shift and Boolean logic operations. Notes Lab2: assembly language; multi-byte operations; subroutines, buttons & LEDs; some possible solutions
5	Sept 22	Program execution time. Assembly 2-Pass Process, Linking, Cross-Assembly, Simulation, Execution, Debugging. Hardware and software development tools.
6	Sept 27	Symbol Table. Array manipulation. Strings. Structures. Notes Lab3: loops, arrays, strings, subroutines, more LEDs and a solution
7	Sept 29	The stack. Introduction to subroutines. Subroutine definition policies. The stack frame. Parameter passing: by value, by reference. Notes
8	Oct 4	Introduction to ANSI C language programming using the GNU C compiler. Notes Basic concepts of Input/Output. Overview of the Cortex-M3 parallel ports Interfacing with simple Input/Output devices: LEDs. Notes Lab4: delays, subroutines, libraries, beeper & LCD
9	Oct 6	Intro to C. Notes
10	Oct 11	C startup code. Variables. Stepper motor. DC motor. Lab5: basic I/O, timers, DC motors, servo motor, PWM (in C) sample solution
11	Oct 13	Timer Functions. Real-time interrupt. Timer counter register. Pulse width modulation. Notes Interrupts: fundamental concepts. Reset vector.
12	Oct 18	MIDTERM Lab6: stepper motor, libraries, first interrupts with timer & keyboard; required files
13	Oct 20	Review the midterm. Interrupt Programming in C. Notes and more notes
14	Oct 25	Interrupts Lab7: interrupts, timers, LCD
15	Oct 27	Libraries.
16	Nov 1	Message and event based programming. Notes State machines; some demo code and its state diagram Lab8: interrupts
17	Nov 3	State machines. Timers: notes and more notes More state machines. The cooperative multitasking framework: dispatcher.
18	Nov 8	More state machines. Lab9: multitasking framework
19	Nov 10	Crosswalk demo
20	Nov 15	Discussion of interrupt programming issues: randomness of interrupt occurrence, timing diagrams (notes) Lab10: Using the radio library files
21	Nov 17	Multitasking in Linux
22	Nov 22	Assignment 5 solution. Flashlight demo code and helper Lab 11: free time for project work (assignment 6)
23	Nov 24	Review Starts
25	Nov 29	Review Lab 12: free time for project work (assignment 6)
24	Dec 1	Review and wrap up

Course Notes

Intro				NET3001-1-Intro.pdf
Assembly language				NET3001-2-Asm.pdf NET3001-3-MoreAsm.pdf NET3001-4-AdvAsm.pdf
C coding				NET3001-5-C.pdf
Interrupts				NET3001-6-Interrupts.pdf
I/O				NET3001-7-IO.pdf NET3001-7a-IO.pdf
Timers				NET3001-8-RTI.pdf NET3001-8-Timers.pdf
Multitasking				NET3001-9-CooperativeMultitasking.pdf NET3001-9a-StateMachine.pdf NET3001-9b-COM-Rational.pdf NET3001-9c-COM-HowTo.pdf
Misc				NET3001-10-MiscTopics.pdf NET3001-10a-MiscTopics.pdf NET3001-10b-MiscTopics.pdf NET3001-11-ADC.pdf

Assignments

Assignment Deadlines

Assignment 1. Sept 13, midnight

Assignment 2. Sept 27, midnight. Here is a possible solution.

Assignment 3. Oct 11, midnight

Assignment 4. Oct 25, midnight

Assignment 5. Nov 17, midnight

Assignment 6. Dec 1, midnight

All assignments will be handed in electronically by running this program. Here are instructions for using the program. Late assignments will recieve a mark of 0.

Resources

Web Site

Course materials will be placed on the NET3001 Web site, so students are expected to have Internet access. The URL for the NET 3001 website is http://www.csit.carleton.ca/~pbeirne/NET3001/Outline.html

Laboratory and Assignments:

The term work is made up of six graded assignments. Assignments will be posted here on the course web page. Each assignment must be handed in on (or before) the due date and time. Late assignments will not be accepted without a valid medical certificate. Students are encouraged to discuss design issues when working on assignments; however, they are expected to write their own programs individually. There is a fine line between cooperating with your colleagues (discussing problems and ideas) and copying program code (plagiarism). Some assignments may require reuse of code from earlier assignments, so be sure to get all of the assignments working, and keep an extra copy when submitting assignments.

Students are warned that the assignments form a very important part of this course – doing the assignments is by far the best way of learning the material. In this context, it should be noted that copying assignments is a self-defeating exercise. Primarily, you won't learn the course material; any student who resorts to copying is not likely to do well on the mid-term or final exam. And secondly, the person marking the assignments uses a sophisticated pattern match tool to locate student copying.

Lab work will be marked. The target for each lab is straightforward, and is always designed to produce a building block for the current assignment. Don't skip the lab.

Grading Scheme:

To pass the course, a student must pass the final examination (D- or better) and obtain an overall passing average (labs plus assignments plus midterm plus final exam). Students who miss an assignment or midterm must present a valid medical certificate to the instructor within a reasonable time after the deadline or midterm; otherwise, the student will receive a zero for that item. For students who pass the final exam, the final grade will be calculated as follows:

Labs: 6%

Assignments: 18%

Mid-term test: 25%

Final exam: 54%
[These marks add up to 103; this is intentional]

Exams & Midterms:

There is one midterm in this course.

There will be one closed book, no calculators, mid-term test. It will be administered in class on October 18 and reviewed 2 days later.

A closed book, no calculators, final exam will be held during the University's formal examination period. The final exam is for evaluation purposes only and will not be returned to the students.

Students who miss the final exam may be granted permission to write a deferred examination (see the Undergraduate Calendar for regulations on deferred exams). These students have additional months to study and a less crowded examination schedule compared to their colleagues who write the final exam in December. As such, it is only fair to expect substantially better performance from these students on the deferred examination than on the final exam.

Special Accomodations:

You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations during the term. For an accommodation request the processes are as follows:

Pregnancy obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website

Religious obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website

Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodations in this course must register with the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) for a formal evaluation of disability-related needs. Documented disabilities could include but are not limited to mobility/physical impairments, specific Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/psychological disabilities, sensory disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and chronic medical conditions. Registered PMC students are required to contact the PMC, 613-520-6608, every term to ensure that I receive your Letter of Accommodation, no later than two weeks before the first assignment is due or the first in-class test/midterm requiring accommodations. If you only require accommodations for your formally scheduled exam(s) in this course, please submit your request for accommodations to PMC by the deadlines published on the PMC website here

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism (copying and handing in for credit someone else's work) is a serious instructional offense that will not be tolerated. Please refer to the section on instructional offenses in the Undergraduate Calendar for additional information.

Changes

Aug 30	changed marking scheme
Sept 13	oops; I had the wrong link for the submit.exe program; it's fixed now
Sept 22	Updated slide set 4 to include the BCS/BHS and BCC/BLO branches.
Sept 27	The code from lecture 6 are posted. The new crt1.S is in the Resources page; make sure you take the one dated Sept 27; the Sept 23 version was incorrect; it's better to move BYTES when filling the .data section, instead of WORDS. The crt1.c version is unaffected; it was always in BYTES. There's a solution for lab3 posted as well.