System for Remote Collaborative Embedded Development

Abstract

This paper explores the challenges and devised solutions for embedded development which arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. While software development, nowadays with modern tools and services such as git, virtual machines and commu-nication suits, is relatively una˙ected by resource location. That is not the case for firmware and embedded systems, which relies on physical hard-ware for design, development, and testing. To overcome the limitations of remote work and ob-structed access to actual hardware, two ideas were implemented and tested. First, based on inte-grated circuit emulation using QEMU to emulate an ARM core and custom software to facilitate communication with the embedded system. Sec-ond, remote programming and debugging over the internet with a dedicated computer system acting as a middle man between a development environ-ment and physical hardware using OpenOCD de-bugger.