Webinars

What's the difference between a mutex and a semaphore? Even very experienced firmware developers too often fail to fully appreciate the importance of using the correct tool for the job at hand. And, unfortunately, misuse of these two distinct types of synchronization primitives can lead to difficult to debug defects in embedded software, with potentially severe consequences in safety-critical medical devices, avionics and transportation equipment.

Learn how to use both mutexes and semaphores most safely and most effectively and why it is important to do so.

A brief introduction on embedded control systems along with a practical example.  You will learn about the differences between open and closed loop systems, a few prerequisites for embedded control systems, controller math, and best practices to follow when designing and working with control systems.

Learn practical and easy-to-apply software process improvements that even the smallest design teams can use to make firmware easier to code, debug and test, with a tools cost of less than $600.

On May 3, 2017, Barr Group CTO and software expert Michael Barr delivered the keynote address at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston. In this important presentation, Michael discusses safety and security concerns that exist in the IoT landscape, including designing security into connected safety-critical devices to prevent serious attacks, which can be deadly.

This webinar examines best practices for assigning fixed priorities to a set of real-time operating systems (RTOS) tasks and interrupt service routines (ISRs). Viewers will learn how and why to use optimal methods to allow a critical set of tasks and interrupt service routines to meet all of their deadlines – even during transient overload periods. Lessons learned can be applied to the development of any priority-based preemptive RTOS, including real-time Linux.

The safety and security of every embedded system is dependent upon proper operation of the stack (or stacks, if there are multiple). If a stack overflow occurs, a major or minor malfunction is very likely to follow. Despite this, the stack in the majority of embedded systems is sized based on nothing more than a hunch. As well, run-time stack monitoring is too seldom used.

C++ compilers are available for most modern embedded processors, yet the adoption rate remains low. Here we provide very practical advice to help you can get started with C++ immediately. The discussion moves quickly from dispelling common C++ myths and identifying key C++ benefits to a set of practical tips and tricks to help you put C++ to the most effective use in your "first month" and "first year."

Barr Group's 2016 Embedded Systems Safety & Security Survey had participation from more than 2,500 embedded systems design engineers and revealed a number of interesting trends in the embedded industry.

It’s a fact: When you create code, you create bugs. Listen in as we present the finer points of Test-Driven Development (TDD) - a game-changing approach to embedded software development that can greatly reduce bugs early in the development process. TDD is not a debugging technique but rather an approach to proactively preventing defects.

Many embedded systems have reliability, cost, and performance requirements that demand performance be designed into the system, from architecture to algorithms to data structures to coding guidelines.