Intelligent Embedded Systems

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Intelligent Embedded Systems

Abstract: Embedded Systems are a crucial technology for competitiveness. The vision of pervasive computing is that objects, buildings and environments may be endowed with software intelligence to improve human interactions both with the individual objects and with the system as a whole. Many intelligent embedded systems move rapidly within a physical environment. While the best complete algorithms are doubly exponential, probabilistic algorithms have emerged that have very good practical performance, and probabilistic guarantees of convergence.

Embedded Systems

'Intelligence' takes account of autonomous reasoning and acting in a co-operative manner. 'Ambient Intelligence' refers to an exciting new paradigm in information technology, "in which people are empowered through a digital environment that is aware of their presence and context and is sensitive, adaptive and responsive to their needs, habits, gestures and emotions." This applies not only for people-centred tasks, which, of course, seems the most exciting, science-fiction-type, aspect, but also for purely technical solutions like smart sensors, actuators and control systems, especially in safety related applications.

Heterogeneity (of environment, applications, protocols, etc.), autonomy (self-awareness, self healing, self-organizing, etc.), nomadic mobility (ad hoc, unreliable, heterogeneous, etc.) and scale-less (number of users, geography, structure, etc.) are the new emerging embedded systems challenges.

Used in everything from consumer electronics to industrial equipment, embedded systems —small, specialized computer systems stored on a single microprocessor — are playing a major role in the growth of the Internet and the boom of wireless communication channels.

Due in part to embedded systems, more and more consumer products and industrial equipment are becoming Internet-friendly. For example, DVD players are now dialling in to Internet databases for movie trivia, and GPS (Global Positioning System) mechanisms are often integrated into automobiles. It is all proof that the Internet and wireless technologies are not just for personal computers anymore.

Most embedded systems are small enough to sit on the end of your thumb and are usually hidden within much larger and more complex mobile computing or electronic devices, so they often go unnoticed. But embedded systems actually represent the vast majority of semiconductor sales. According to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics blue book, there are an estimated 5 billion embedded microprocessors in use today — a whopping 94 percent share of the world market. (By comparison, unit sales of high-profile PC processors, such as the Intel Pentium and Motorola PowerPC, check in at only 6 percent market share.)

Embedded Systems Applications- Peaking into future

Embedded systems can be regarded today as some of the most lively research and industrial targets.

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