2013 IEEE 17th International Symposium on Consumer Electronics (ISCE)

An Open Source and Low Cost Solution for Consumer Electronics Middleware Validation
Gustavo M. Calixto, Member, IEEE, Celio Hira, Laisa C. P. Costa, Member, IEEE, Roseli de Deus Lopes, Member, IEEE and Marcelo K. Zuffo, Member, IEEE University of Sao Paulo, Polytechnic School, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Abstract - This work presents an open source and low cost solution to validate consumer electronics middleware using a generic platform. A development solution using Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 2 single-board computer is shown and a study case was executed. The results points out that software validation have been executed with a satisfactory behavior, becoming a low cost and open source alternative to consumer electronics software validation.

I. INTRODUCTION The development of consumer electronics software solutions is an emergent trend in engineering and computer areas, attracting the attention of both academic and industry groups. Consumer electronics solutions often work with an embedded system approach, including a software platform development, middleware for providing specific services, applications for end user interaction and a dedicated hardware to fulfill functional and performance requirements. Regarding the middleware software development, the modeling and implementation of an adaptation layer is recommended as a best practice. An adaptation layer is a software interface that makes possible to build a service framework, such as a middleware, to be integrated in any software device architecture through an available API (Application Programming Interface). To execute a middleware architecture validation, it is recommended to realize a cross-compiling process and execute the artifact developed on a dedicated hardware [1], [2]. However, some projects have issues such as scarce platform API support, incompatible hardware or sometimes there are some cases when development teams rely exclusively on simulation results that, in most of cases, do not match with a real behavior. Most of traditional hardware platform and its SDK are expensive, affecting project costs. This work presents an open source and low cost solution to validate consumer electronics middleware using a generic platform. Next section presents the platform overview and the proposed development framework. After that, a case study involving a middleware development is shown as well as the obtained results and conclusions. II. PLATFORM OVERVIEW The generic platform used in this work is a Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 2. This is a single-board computer containing an Ethernet network port, two USB 2.0 interfaces, a SD memory card, HDMI and RCA ports for audio and video

and a port to connect no special purpose devices, such as an experimental hardware, called GPIO. The SoC contains an ARM1176JZFS which works on floating point at 700Mhz. There is a GPU capable of full high-definition playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a 3D video core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries [3]. The potential of this platform is interesting enough to use in proof concepts [4]. This platform has a low cost, and includes an open source API, cross-compile tool and a PC simulator, as well as documentation and an online forum for technical support and discussions. The platform executes a Linux based OS, which facilities developers to test embedded software services. The selected board for this work has an enough performance balanced with its cost, satisfying the proof concept requirement needs. This choice does not exclude the future use of similar platforms shown on [5] and [6]. III. DEVELOPMENT SOLUTION Fig. 1 shows the layers diagram that illustrates the software development framework using the generic platform. The end user applications are executed using a middleware, which contains two basic building blocks: the Functional Software Modules and the Adaptation Layer. The Functional Software Modules are designed to support and manage the execution of applications. The Adaptation Layer allows that specific functionalities could be implemented in different ways according to the platform. Through the adaptation layer, the middleware is integrated with the platform APIs as well as calls to direct standard OS libraries.
Applications

Middleware Funcional Software Modules

Adaptation Layer

Raspberry APIs OpenGL OpenMAX OpenVG

Linuxbased OS

Hardware Componentes

Fig. 1. Development Solution Layers Diagram

This work has been supported by BRIPTV and RH-TVD projects, funded by FINEP and CAPES respectively.

978-1-4673-6199-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

159

2013 IEEE 17th International Symposium on Consumer Electronics (ISCE)

IV. CASE STUDY A case study was developed to validate a Digital TV middleware that provides services to execute applications written in NCL/Lua, based on ITU-T H.761 recommendation [7]. The middleware development has started from a C/C++ baseline source-code that was already available as open source [8]. However, this source code was elaborated to simulate an Interactive Digital TV receiver running on personal computers. This way, it was not compiled to an embedded hardware. This code had an adaptation layer module, but the function calls were implemented to run on standard personal computer architectures. The first step in our work was to reorganize the middleware architecture, mainly in modules that makes interface with the platform. Our main concern with software architecture is to provide an Adaptation Layer good enough to allow that a variety of different platforms with different processors and operating systems could be used. After that, the middleware was compiled using the Raspberry Pi cross-compiler, adjusting specific code points, such as adapting the middleware for image players. The third and last step was to execute a NCL application on the middleware using the generic platform and observe the main aspects, comparing with the personal computer version. V. RESULTS Tests have been realized executing NCL application over the middleware on the generic platform. The application chosen for the test have been executed with a satisfactory behavior, similar as executed on PC simulator, shown on Fig. 2. Table I shows a behavior comparison between PC and Generic Platform.
TABLE I MIDDLEWARE BEHAVIOR Aspect User Interface Performance Objects Rendering and Positioning Application Language Parsing Personal Computer Functional interaction executing applications Objects has been played as expected Worked as expected Generic Platform Similar behavior as personal computer Objects has been played using the screen as a TV set Worked as expected

VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS Analyzing the development framework and the results obtained, it is possible to find strengths and weaknesses using the presented approach. A strong point was the efficient time to integrate a preliminary consumer electronic software version in comparison with previous works using other platforms [9], [10]. The use of low cost single-board computer resources as a generic platform to validate embedded middleware architecture and an adaptation layer accelerated the development process. A point to improve is regarding the platform reliability: its important to reinforce that this study shows that a low cost single-board computer is efficient to develop proofs of concept for consumer electronics, but it requires improvements to be a product to end user. Observing the middleware behavior described in Table I, the user interface, media objects rendering and application parsing has a behavior similar to PC, both the according of ITU-T H.761. The adaptation layer was improved, correcting source code direct calls to generic platform API. Concerning the future works, there are some points of evolution in the study case presented. Efforts should be executed to play media and receive applications over MPEGTS data stream, improve the performance of applications in Lua scripts and play applications with audio resources. In relation to the development framework, it should be applied to other scenarios to have more outcomes. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thanks to Flavio Alberto Lopes Soares, Marcelo Grigoletto de Biase e Wellington Brito de Carvalho due to their support to this work. REFERENCES
[1] Lukac, Z.; Radonjic, M.; Mlikota, B.; Veris, B.; Maruna, T., "An approach to complex software system design evaluated on the HbbTV software stack," Consumer Electronics - Berlin (ICCE-Berlin), 2011 IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.112,114, 6-8 Sept. 2011 Kunzli, S.; Thiele, L.; Zitzler, E., "Modular design space exploration framework for embedded systems," Computers and Digital Techniques, IEE Proceedings - , vol.152, no.2, pp.183,192, Mar 2005 Raspberry Pi, available in URL http://www.raspberrypi.org/, accessed in 27/02/2013 Sabastian, Tonny A; Guarddin, Gladhi; Abi, Rheza N; Mufti, Hussein M., "Aeronautical telecommunication network protocol tunnel prototype over IP based infrastructure," Advanced Computer Science and Information Systems (ICACSIS), 2012 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.83,88, 1-2 Dec. 2012 BeagleBone Black, available in URL http://beagleboard.org/, accessed in 28/04/2013

[2]

[3] [4]

Adaptation Layer Integration

Direct calls without a adaptation layer have found

Specific APIs has been compiled and others were available to platform. Direct calls were adjusted.

[5]

[6]

Hackberry

A10

Development

Board,

available

in

URL

Fig. 2. Application Behavior Comparison: Personal Computer Simulator on left side and Generic Platform on right side.

https://www.miniand.com/, accessed in 28/04/2013 [7] ITU-T H.761, International Telecommunications Union, 2012 [8] Soares, L.F.G.; Moreno, M.F.; De Salles Soares Neto, C.; Moreno, M.F., "Ginga-NCL: Declarative middleware for multimedia IPTV services," Communications Magazine, IEEE , vol.48, no.6, pp.74,81, June 2010 [9] Costa, L.C.P.; Maruffa, A.; Carvalho, W.; Zuffo, M.K., "A framework design for connected television," Consumer Electronics (ICCE), 2012 IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.590,591, 13-16 Jan. 2012 [10] Costa, L.C.P.; Hira, C.; De Biase, M.G.; Zuffo, M.K., "Universal set-top box: A simple design to provide accessible services," Consumer Electronics (ICCE), 2011 IEEE International Conference on , vol., no., pp.41,42, 9-12 Jan. 2011

160