Embedded System Challenges

Embedded system challenges

Over the years the embedded industry has seen tremendous growth despite some challenges faced by developers. There is a constant effort in solving real world problems which is complex in nature and hard for a novice engineer to get their hands dirty. This also gives rise to lack of experienced developers who can handcraft the numerous lines of code. And is hard to find them to accomplish the task.

Are you an embedded systems ready student who want to start your career in this subject? Sounds fascinating, isn’t! Firstly, start with a strong mindset and will to learn. More importantly consistency in learning.

Embedded system is everywhere from Healthcare, Automotive, Commercial appliances, Aerospace, Rail, mobile electronics, Toys, Defense, Telecom and the list goes on.

The principal approach of solving problem remains same but innovation is the key. Let me break these challenges into pieces such as:

1. Security:

a. Less structured frameworks are more prone to attacks and can be secured with hardware encryption for increased security perhaps with cryptographic algorithm and hashing, Access control policies, rootless execution [1] ?to gain ability to attach a system for malicious purposes.

b. Common practice is using microkernel[2] OS which is hot topic of research for many years now which provides solid base architecture for distribution, fault tolerance and security.

2. Power consumption:

a. With more transistor used on-board, more power consumption is drawn which is to be kept in mind by the architects.

3. Cost:

a. From design to finished product incurs costing along with timely delivery to market.

4. Reverse engineering board:

a. It is a real complex task to do but is possible. Since few decades Reverse engineering is protected by US semiconductor protection Act. For product teardown and analysis to sketch the schematics from extracted connections[3].

5. Testing possibility:

a. Testing is very important part of development lifecycle. And also come with struggle of defects hardware dependency, iterative updates and maintenance to meet consumer demands.

References:

[1]???????B. Limited. A. rights reserved. Copyright ? 2002–2021, “Rootless Execution.”

[2]???????A. Bricker, M. Gien, M. Guillemont, J. Lipkis, D. Orr, and M. Rozier, “Architectural issues in microkernel-based operating systems: the Chorus experience,” Comput Commun, vol. 14, no. 6, 1991, doi: 10.1016/0140-3664(91)90060-E.

[3]???????R. Torrance and D. James, “The state-of-the-art in IC reverse engineering,” in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2009, vol. 5747 LNCS. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-04138-9_26.