Diplom application
Today, Andreas and I finally applied for our Diplom, which we had to do to officially get started with our thesis. Our thesis topic is Architektur für selbstkonfigurierend Dienste auf Basis minimaler eingebetteter Systeme
which kind of means Architecture for self configuring Services based on minimal embedded systems
So what we're doing is develop a Protocol Stack for the development of services on embedded systems, as tiny as the AVR microcontrollers with as little as 2kb RAM. The protocol stack will feature TCP/IP, UDP, DHCP, mDNS for Service Discovery, a small HTTP server,... that is to deploy small services on the network, which will advertise themselves using the well established Bonjour technology and can be controlled using a web browser.
The specialty is to have all that working on 32kb program memory and 2kb RAM. This will be the smallest implementation of a Bonjour protocol stack in the world* and I'm convinced it'll work. To get it working we're implementing our own system for memory management and a protocol stack state machine to keep RAM usage low and deterministic. Our memory management does automatic defragmentation of free memory, so maximum amount of memory will be available to handle packets coming from the network.
The motivation behind this is to allow small sensors or devices with little ressources to connect to the network and be usable without administrative setup. Control your heater or your lights over the internet.. no problem. Open your garage door using your cell phone, stream music from your PC to your stereo. There are endless reasons why small network devices are needed and for those we need a small software package to implement network services on them.
Today I finished implementing the Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses. Together with DHCP, which I had finished a few days ago, all means necessary for automated IP configuration are implemented and I'll move on to IP Multicast and mDNS. Yay. ;)
So this is a big day for me as I'm moving forward in life and I hope that we'll finish the paper by March. We'll see. :)
*if you find another protocol stack implementing Bonjour within these constraints please let me know, as that information may be vital for our thesis. I didn't find any.
which kind of means Architecture for self configuring Services based on minimal embedded systems
So what we're doing is develop a Protocol Stack for the development of services on embedded systems, as tiny as the AVR microcontrollers with as little as 2kb RAM. The protocol stack will feature TCP/IP, UDP, DHCP, mDNS for Service Discovery, a small HTTP server,... that is to deploy small services on the network, which will advertise themselves using the well established Bonjour technology and can be controlled using a web browser.
The specialty is to have all that working on 32kb program memory and 2kb RAM. This will be the smallest implementation of a Bonjour protocol stack in the world* and I'm convinced it'll work. To get it working we're implementing our own system for memory management and a protocol stack state machine to keep RAM usage low and deterministic. Our memory management does automatic defragmentation of free memory, so maximum amount of memory will be available to handle packets coming from the network.
The motivation behind this is to allow small sensors or devices with little ressources to connect to the network and be usable without administrative setup. Control your heater or your lights over the internet.. no problem. Open your garage door using your cell phone, stream music from your PC to your stereo. There are endless reasons why small network devices are needed and for those we need a small software package to implement network services on them.
Today I finished implementing the Dynamic Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses. Together with DHCP, which I had finished a few days ago, all means necessary for automated IP configuration are implemented and I'll move on to IP Multicast and mDNS. Yay. ;)
So this is a big day for me as I'm moving forward in life and I hope that we'll finish the paper by March. We'll see. :)
*if you find another protocol stack implementing Bonjour within these constraints please let me know, as that information may be vital for our thesis. I didn't find any.