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The University of New South Wales

CAmkES: Component Architecture for microkernel-based Embedded Systems

Overview

CAmkES is a joint project between the Empirical Software Engineering (ESE) and Embedded, Real-Time and Operating Systems (ERTOS) programs of NICTA.

The goal of the CAmkES project is to design and develop a software component architecture suitable for the development of next-generation embedded systems. Our approach is based on a tight integration with an underlying high-performance microkernel-based system. This allows us to introduce mechanisms that enable separation-of-concerns, while still allowing for the architectural innovation required to address the performance, security, and reliability needs of embedded system software.

There are a number of reasons why a component architecture is desirable for embedded systems. A good component architecture eases software development by providing a more structured software engineering approach. It is also compatible with many modern modeling methods (such as UML and ROOM) enabling related software engineering advances to be applied to the embedded systems domain.

Organising software as interacting components with well-defined interfaces improves the reusability of code. It also improves flexibility by allowing components to be added and removed from a system (possibly at run-time), as well as allowing components developed in different languages to interact with each other. Basing an embedded system on components also makes verifying correctness and security properties more feasible and improves testing possibilities. Furthermore, components provide natural units of protection, fault containment, and resource management.

Further Documentation

More Information

Contact

For more information about the project please contact either Ihor (ihor.kuz) or Jenny (jenny.liu) @nicta.com.au