VDEES: A virtual development environment for embedded software using open source software

Consumer electronics are becoming more feature rich. Embedded system developers use design and testing tools to make their products faster. However, tool improvements have not kept pace with the rapid development of customized hardware parts. The simulation of target system or virtual platform helps developers of embedded software for consumer electronics work without having to wait for the physical hardware to be available. In this work, we designed and implemented a virtual development environment for embedded software (VDEES). This environment provides the tools to build a virtual platform according to a given target hardware specification and to develop software to run on the target hardware with the virtual platform. VDEES is implemented at low cost by exploiting open source software packages and extended or customized them to meet our requirements. VDEES provides a configuration tool for composing a virtual target, a code editor for writing simulated components, software to be run on the target, building tools for binary images, a debugger for investigation of the software running on the virtual target, and a system monitor for the investigation of the virtual target.