Teaching Real Time Embedded Systems Networking And Assessment Of Student Learning

Today, embedded systems and embedded networking are common in manufacturing, complex vehicles, medical equipment, and home appliances, but few undergraduate engineering and technology curricula teach courses devoted to real-time embedded systems networking. Not having appropriate educational experiences risks a decline in U.S. technical expertise. Various companies such as Vector Corporation and Dearborn Group have developed commercial software packages for analysis, diagnosis and simulation of real-time embedded systems networking protocols. These companies also offer short training courses in embedded systems networking. The intended audiences of these training courses are the experienced engineers working in the industry but not the inexperienced undergraduate students. Although the commercial software packages are very complex and time consuming for the students to learn on their own, they can be taught (delivered) to the students in a simple way. This can be done by focusing on the major components that are considered the base to build any real-time embedded systems network. In this paper, we present an instructional material for CAN Open Environment (CANoe) software. This software can be used to develop, test, and simulate CAN networks. The instructional material basically summarizes the main components that are needed to build CANoe application in five labs. These labs represent the major phases in the CANoe application development cycle. Students, after learning this material, can move forward to develop more sophisticated applications on their own. We have also done assessment analysis for student learning. Based on our analysis it is concluded that our semester-long teaching and hands-on laboratory exercises greatly enhanced student learning. Detailed descriptions of our teaching materials along with our teaching methodologies are presented in the paper. The paper also presents the assessment of student learning. Our work may motivate other instructors around the country to develop similar courses to teaching real-time embedded systems networking.