Integrated Development of Embedded Systems with Remote Graphical User Interfaces

Abstract

This paper presents a Graphical User Interface (GUI) Builder for embedded systems and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). The hardware platforms used in CPSs may employ physical devices without graphical and user-input capabilities, or devices that may be placed on multiple remote locations, often with difficult physical access, that brings new challenges to GUI design. The proposed tool, integrated within the IOPT-Flow framework, enables a new approach to answer these challenges. This framework supports the development of embedded systems and distributed CPSs, offering a set of web-based tools for model edition, simulation, and implementation on physical devices. Systems are designed using graphical models combining Data-flows, Signals, and Petri nets, that permit the specification of remote communication channels just by drawing arcs. The new GUI Builder tool uses this infrastructure to automate the creation of graphical user interfaces for embedded systems and distributed CPSs, benefiting from a development with combined design, validation and automatic code generation methods. Finally, an application example of a power wheelchair controller integrating a GUI, is presented.