Course Catalogue

Embedded System Design (UESTC) UESTCHN5010

  • Academic Session: 2026-27
  • School: School of Engineering
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 1
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No
  • Curriculum For Life: No

Short Description

This course covers the basic concepts, technologies and principles of embedded systems design, including the typical design flow, model specifications, hardware and software components, mapping algorithms, and evaluations, etc. It develops insight into the relationship between the run-time behavior of the systems and the timing characteristics of resource-constrained embedded systems.

Timetable

This course will be timetabled in blocks, typically one week in four.

Requirements of Entry

None

Excluded Courses

None

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

40% Coursework (including attendance, oral presentation and technical reports)

60% Final exam (open-book exam)

Main Assessment In: December

Course Aims

This course aims to strengthen students' basic knowledge, professional competence, comprehensive quality and innovative ability from the perspective of embedded systems design. It is particularly suited to acquiring the complementary hardware and software knowledge and skills required for the understanding and design of time-critical embedded systems. The concepts are illustrated through industrial examples and real-world application projects to refine analysis techniques and develop measurement skills. Through lecture course, theoretical surveys, and technical reports, students can master a solid theoretical knowledge of modern embedded systems and improve expertise and engineering literacy in the field of embedded systems design.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Identify the most outstanding characteristics of the embedded systems with respect to the design goals and the operation environment.

2. Define the fundamental specifications of the systems under design, including the models of computations and the models of communications.

3. Apply the hardware and software knowledge to select appropriate hardware components and system software, including low-power sensors, micro-controllers, compilers, operating systems, and software tools.

4. Employ the concepts of real-time scheduling and synchronization management in the design of the runtime system environment.

5. Apply application mapping algorithms, including bin-packing based heuristics and linear programming algorithms, and priority assignment heuristics for efficient embedded systems design.

6. Analyse the timing behaviour of real-time embedded systems, including worst-case response time, worst-case blocking time and schedulability.

7. Evaluate the effectiveness and real-time performance of resource-constrained embedded systems.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

No exceptions