ATOMI II - Framework for Easy Building of Object-oriented Embedded Systems

Traditionally, an embedded system design process demands a considerable amount of expertise, time and money. This makes developing embedded systems difficult for many companies, and in research facilities it hinders the testing of new research results with real embedded systems. We have earlier presented an easy and fast embedded system development concept based on embedded objects. The embedded object concept (EOC) utilizes common object-oriented methods used in software by applying them in combined Lego-like software-hardware entities. This concept enables fast prototyping with target hardware, incremental device development and high-level device building for nonexperts. The EOC requires a modularly extendable architecture along with mechanical and technical definitions in order to enable physical and electrical interconnectivity with versatile signaling between embedded objects. This paper presents the Atomi II framework, which is our solution for this need. The framework has been tested and implemented with so-called Atomi objects