Advanced C Programming for Microcontrollers

The course is for experienced C programmers, working on embedded systems, who would like to learn structured programming techniques, fill in gaps in their knowledge, and learn about more advanced data structures and algorithms.

It will also cover object oriented programming techniques as implemented in C, useful in projects where a UML design is to be realised in C and assembler.

Coverage of the MISRA programming guidelines for developing safety critical code are included, and the tools available for checking conformance to these guidelines are reviewed

Extensions to ANSI C that are provided by various compilers targeted at micro-controller based systems - such as pragmas, keywords for specifying a function as an interrupt handler, keywords for specifying special function registers, and addressable bits are critically discussed.

Code profiling, tuning and optimisation techniques are discussed, including discussion of situations where it might be better to implement modules in assembler that can be accessed via C function calls.

A considerable part of the course is devoted to detailed coverage of interrupt handling, multi-tasking via polled,interrupt driven and hybrid approaches, timer driven multi-tasking scheduler implementation, control of access to critical resources, memory and buffer management,and the implementation of device driver software.

Course Outline

C syntax - intensive overview

• Base data types, operators, functions, if .. else, switch, for loops, while and do - while loops
• structures, arrays of structures and pointers to structures
• function pointers
• C Macro pre-processor

Finite State Machines (FSMs)

• Event driven systems
• FSM diagrams
• Switch statement implementation of an FSM
• Table driven implementation of an FSM
• Push Down Automata
• Extending FSMs via Statecharts
• Implementing Statechart designs in C

Modular code - Components and Object Oriented Coding in C

Intended Audience

The course is aimed at experienced programmers, who have a good understanding of embedded systems hardware. It is designed for programmers and engineers who will be embarking on advanced projects involving many 1000's of lines of code.

The course covers both hardware and software aspects of developing embedded systems applications, and assumes a reasonable degree of understanding of the hardware and electronics aspects of developing embedded systems applications.

This is a tough and challenging course and is not suitable for "casual programmers". To get the most benefit from this course you must love and enjoy solving challenging problems of a programming nature and like working "close to the hardware".

Key Skills

• Implementing component oriented and object oriented code in C
• Realising Finite State Machine and Statechart designs in C
• Exploiting dynamic data structure programming techniques in embedded systems applications
• Developing appropriate multi-tasking solutions
• Writing device drivers and interrupt handlers
• Implementing multi-processor data acquisition and control applications

Practical Work

The course will cover use of the GNU and IAR compilers (and other compilers such as the Keil and Tasking compilers when required) The prinicpal target controllers will be higher end micro-controllers such as PIC18, Mitsubishi M16C, and the ARM and ARM9 micro-controllers. (Higher end 8051 and C167 microcontrollers when required)

The major practical activities

• Testing and debugging substantial programs
• Infrastructure development using modular (component and object oriented) programming techniques
• Implementing and modifying major algorithms for working with dynamic data structures that are used in embedded systems applications
• Implementing efficient memory management schemes
• Implementing device driver code for RS232
• Implementing multi-tasking applications directly
• Implementing Unix style pipes
• Implementing a multi processor I2C based master-slave application
• Implementing a multi processor CAN based master-slave application