Hardware/software co-design of embedded real-time systems from an undergraduate perspective

Abstract

The increasing complexity of embedded systems parallels the difficulty of adequately preparing students to design them. Two topics key to the success of a graduate in the area of embedded systems are hardware/software co-design and real-time computing. This paper serves as a case study describing how an undergraduate applied hardware/software co-design in the design of a spectrum analyzer with real-time constraints for a Capstone senior design project. The goal of this work is to produce a co-design approach more suited for undergraduates having little design experience.