With the opening of the new Real-time Embedded Systems Laboratory (RESL), Waterloo Engineering has gained the tools and capabilities necessary to reduce the size, power, and cost of a wide range of industrial and consumer products, while increasing reliability and performance.
An embedded system is a computer designed for specific control functions within a larger system, often with real-time computing constraints. Real-time embedded systems are characterized by their interaction with the environment through sensors and actuators, their resource constraint platforms, and non-functional properties. The technology is turning up everywhere from automobiles and tablet computers to oil and pipeline control systems.
Established with assistance from CMC Microsystems, the RESL will be operated by Waterloo Engineering’s Real-time Embedded Software Group, which concentrates on research of these systems at the intersection of software technology, embedded networking, and applied formal methods.
“We are very pleased to be home to the Real-time Embedded Systems Laboratory, which is the first of its kind in Canada,” said Pearl Sullivan, Waterloo Engineering's dean. “The opportunities the lab’s facilities offer our researchers in developing leading-edge embedded technologies are virtually endless.” [news release]