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Exam results published and inspection

Written on 05.09.22 by Martina Maggio

The results of the retake exam are now available here in CMS. If you want to inspect your exam, you can either directly come to my office (building E1 3, Room 305) on Tuesday September 13th between 13:00 and 15:00, or you can send me an email at maggio[@]cs.uni-saarland.de to book another time slot… Read more

Exam on August 30th 2022: seating assignment and rules

Written on 28.08.22 by Martina Maggio

The seating assignment for the exam on August 30th (starting time 13:30) is now visible on your personal status page in the CMS. If you have not received a seat but you have registered for the exam, send an email to maggio[@]cs.uni-saarland.de immediately.

Regarding hygiene regulations during the… Read more

Regarding hygiene regulations during the exam, please note the following:

We recommend you to bring your medical mouth-nose protection mask (surgical mask or FFP2/KN95/N95 mask) with you.
We recommend that a safety distance of (at least) 1.5m is kept at all times.
You do not have to wear your mask when (everybody is) seated.

Please bring the following items to the exam:

Pens (non-erasable pens in dark blue or black).
Your student ID card.
An approved calculator (calculators that allows direct eigenvalues computation are not allowed).

Please note:

We will provide you with sufficient amount of paper, please don't bring your own.
Any cheat sheets, books, etc. are not allowed (the formula sheet will be attached to the exam itself).

When & how to enter the building?

We plan to start the exam at 13:30 and finish at 15:30. However, keeping distance to each other and following the safety instructions has priority, so we may start or finish later.
The exam takes place in the Günter-Hotz lecture hall (AudiMo - Günter-Hotz-Hörsaal, Gebäude E2 2). Your personal status page is showing you the seat we reserved for you. If you are seated in rows 1-9, please come to the front doors of the foyer. For rows 10-17, please come to the back doors opposite of the math building E2 4.
Please be no later than 13:10 in the proximity of your designated entrance door. At any time, keep a distance of at least 1.5m to other people. The staff members will open the doors to let you in.

Results in LSF, registration for re-exam, and certificates

Written on 29.07.22 (last change on 29.07.22) by Martina Maggio

After the end of the exam inspection, the results of the exam of July 25th are now published in LSF. If you want to register for the re-exam in September, you should now have the option to do so in LSF. If you need a certificate for the exam completion (e.g., for Erasmus students) please notify me via… Read more

Exam results published and inspection

Written on 26.07.22 by Martina Maggio

The exam results are now available here in CMS. If you want to inspect your exam, you can either directly come to my office (building E1 3, Room 305) tomorrow July 27th between 13:15 and 15:15, or you can send me an email at maggio[@]cs.uni-saarland.de to book another time slot. The email should be… Read more

Exam on July 25th 2022: seating assignment and rules

Written on 22.07.22 by Martina Maggio

The seating assignment for the exam on July 25th is now visible on your personal status page in the CMS. If you have not received a seat but you have registered for the exam, send an email to maggio[@]cs.uni-saarland.de immediately.

Regarding hygiene regulations during the exam, please note the… Read more

Regarding hygiene regulations during the exam, please note the following:

We recommend you to bring your medical mouth-nose protection mask (surgical mask or FFP2/KN95/N95 mask) with you.
We recommend that a safety distance of (at least) 1.5m is kept at all times.
You do not have to wear your mask when (everybody is) seated.

Please bring the following items to the exam:

Pens (non-erasable pens in dark blue or black).
Your student ID card.
An approved calculator (calculators that allows direct eigenvalues computation are not allowed).

Please note:

We will provide you with sufficient amount of paper, please don't bring your own.
Any cheat sheets, books, etc. are not allowed (the formula sheet will be attached to the exam itself).

When & how to enter the building?

We plan to start the exam at 9:00 and finish at 11:00. However, keeping distance to each other and following the safety instructions has priority, so we may start or finish later.
The exam takes place in the Günter-Hotz lecture hall (AudiMo - Günter-Hotz-Hörsaal, Gebäude E2 2). Your personal status page is showing you the seat we reserved for you. If you are seated in rows 1-9, please come to the front doors of the foyer. For rows 10-17, please come to the back doors opposite of the math building E2 4.
Please be no later than 8:45 in the proximity of your designated entrance door. At any time, keep a distance of at least 1.5m to other people. The staff members will open the doors to let you in.

Qualis course evaluation (your feedback is needed and highly appreciated)

Written on 21.06.22 by Martina Maggio

In the materials page, I have posted the link to the quails evaluation for the course, for both lectures and tutorials. This is your chance of expressing an opinion about the course and the course content, and to help the future generation of students (by giving us feedback on what works in the course and what doesn't work well and should be revised). As the course is about feedback control, I am pretty sure you understand - by now - that information is crucial and allows us to improve. Please take the time to fill in the survey for the course evaluation.

Forum active on CMS website

Written on 15.06.22 by Martina Maggio

I was anonymously asked to turn in the forum for embedded systems, so there is now an active forum in CMS - feel free to use it.

Exam dates and times

Written on 17.05.22 by Martina Maggio

The exam dates for the embedded system course are going to be July 25th (9:00-12:00) and August 30th (13:00-16:00). Both exams are going to take place in the Günter-Hotz Lecture Hall.

Tutorial date-time switch from May 18th to May 19th

Written on 12.05.22 by Martina Maggio

This is just to inform all of you that the tutorial that was scheduled for 18.05.2022 at 10:00 has been moved to 19.05.2022 at 14:00. The updated schedule can be found in the timetable.

Julia instructions to plot step response

Written on 05.05.22 by Martina Maggio

As we saw today during the lecture, the newest version of the ControlSystems library in Julia does not support immediate plot of step responses. The simplest way I found to plot the signal is the following:

> using LinearAlgebra
> using ControlSystems
> using Plots
  [definition of Phi, Gamma,… Read more

> using LinearAlgebra
> using ControlSystems
> using Plots
  [definition of Phi, Gamma, C, D, sampling_period]
> S = ss(Phi, Gamma, C, D, sampling_period);
> y, t, x = step(S);
> plot(t, y');

The transpose in the plot is necessary for column/row consistency.

Show all

Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are computer systems with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system. The vast majority of computing systems are - in fact - embedded. Many of the systems we interact with in our daily life contain embedded systems. Think for example about a washing machine, or a dishwasher, or a smart watch, or a mobile phone. According to a 2009 article, "around 98% of the new CPUs produced each year are embedded".

Embedded systems often interact with the physical world around them, and many of them are control systems, that change the behavior of the environment around them to achieve some desired specification (think for example about a thermostat, or about the cruise control system in a car). Because their computation is dedicated to specific tasks, it is often possible to optimize the computation units to: (i) reduce the size and cost of the product, and (ii) increase its reliability and performance.

In this course we will take a look at the theoretical foundation of embedded systems programming, with a strong emphasis on cyber-physical systems. In particular, the course is divided into three modules.

Models: The first part is dedicated to modeling the physics that the embedded systems interact with. We will look at (particular classes of) dynamical systems and discuss models in continuous time and discrete time. We will also look into how to model discrete state systems, and combination of discrete state and dynamical systems, known as hybrid systems.
Control: The second part of the course is dedicated to control principles. We will investigate how to change the behavior of physical systems and how the computation can interact with the environment around us. In particular, we will look at two control techniques: (i) state feedback, and (ii) PID control.
Implementation: The third part of the course is dedicated to study what happens when implementing code for embedded systems. In particular, we will look at scheduling, communication, fault tolerance, and testing.

Calendar

Lectures are scheduled on Tuesdays 14-16 and Thursdays 10-12 in lecture hall HS002 (building E1 3).
Tutorials are going to be held on zoom (you can find the link in the materials page).
In the timetable page, you can see a detailed plan for lectures and tutorial dates.

Evaluation

To be admitted to the exam, you need to pass a midterm assignment. The grade is entirely determined based on the result of the exam.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of Linear Algebra is needed for both part 1 and 2.
To refresh linear algebra concepts, I recommend you to watch the youtube playlist "the essence of linear algebra".

Software

You will use (at least) one alternative as software to study and practice the course content:

Julia (with the ControlSystems library), or
MATLAB (and the ControlSystems toolbox), or
Python (with the ControlSystems library).

While Julia and Phyton are open source and easy to obtain, you can download MATLAB from asknet (free of charge with your student account). You don't need to choose a preferred language at the course start, but please make sure that you have the software you want to use installed before the first exercise session and use the software to double check the solution of your exercises.