EMBEDDED CONTROLLERS AND DEVELOPMENT TOOL FOR EMBEDDED CONTROLLERS

• US 20080313614A1
• Filed: 08/20/2008
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Yokoyama, Takanori, Miyazaki, Taizo, YOSHIMURA, Kentaro
• Granted Patent: US 8,347,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/120
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse

Abstract

An embedded controller development tool which generates an interface means for preserving and outputting a control data calculated by the control operation means based on a specific computational procedure, and providing said control data to a plurality of control operation means including said control operation means; wherein the control operation means is described as a function in the source code of the program, the reference data used for calculation by said control operation is an argument of the function, said control data calculated by said control operation means is the argument of the function which points the return value or the address of said function.

Claims

1. An embedded controller comprising:

a signal receiving section which captures an input signal from outside and converts captured said input signal into a form of data;

a processor which processes said input signal in said form of data to compute a control data;

a signal outputting section which outputs said control data to an external device to be connected thereto as a control signal therefor;

a memory which memorizes an embedded software to make said processor execute said computation of said control data;

wherein

said embedded software includes an application software and a basic software;

wherein

said application software includes a plurality of software parts, an interface software that individually supports each of said plural software parts, and a basic controlling software that controls execution sequence of said plural software parts; and

said basic software controls starting said application software, and reading-out said input signal and sending-out said control signal according to commands generated from said application software;

wherein

said software part performs computation based on said input signal or a control data that is a result of controlling computation performed by other software parts; and

said interface software controls exchange of said control data between said software part and said other software part.

2. An embedded controller according to claim 1, wherein

said interface software preserves said control data which is computed by said software part supported by said interface software;

and

other interface software refers said control data preserved in said interface software.

3. An embedded controller according to claim 2, wherein

said interface software collects said control data referring to said control data preserved in other interface software or referring to said control data preserved in said interface software;

and

said data to be collected is a data that said software part, which is supported by said interface software, uses in its execution of computation.

4. An embedded controller according to claim 3, wherein

said interface software commands said software part to execute computation over said control data collected by said interface software for said computation by said software part;

said interface software provides said software part with such a condition that said software part can refer to said specified control data in its execution of commanded computation; and

said control data to be computed is specified by said interface software from among said collected control data.

5. An embedded controller according to claim 1, wherein said interface software preserves a control data that is a result of computation by said software part, wherein the number of said control data to be preserved is only one for each of said software part.

6. An embedded controller according to claim 2, wherein said interface software preserves a control data that is a result of computation by said software part, wherein the number of said control data to be preserved is only one for each of said software part.

7. An embedded controller according to claim 3, wherein said interface software preserves a control data that is a result of computation by said software part, wherein the number of said control data to be preserved is only one for each of said software part.

8. An embedded controller according to claim 4, wherein said interface software preserves a control data that is a result of computation by said software part, wherein the number of said control data to be preserved is only one for each of said software part.