18-642 Introduction to Embedded Systems
12 units, Carnegie Mellon University
In a very real sense, embedded software is what makes our everyday world function. From selfdriving cars to chemical processing plant equipment, and from medical devices to the electric grid, embedded software is everywhere. You already know how to write code for a microcontroller. Now, learn software quality, safety, and security skills that are required to make embedded systems that can handle the messiness of the real world. This course provides indepth coverage of the topics that are essential to the success of embedded software projects based on case studies of industry project teams that have suffered or failed. Students will learn about a variety of topics including lightweight but high quality embedded software processes, technical best practices for embedded software, effective testing and validation, causes of software system failures, software for safetycritical systems, and embeddedspecific aspects of software security. The material will generally be broken up into a set of four related topics each week, with one assignment per topic weekly, involving a combination of programming assignments, tool use experiences, and research questions to get handson experience at dealing with the types of problems that are encountered in industry embedded projects. We assume you already know how to code in C and understand the basics of microcontrollers. This course is about getting you ready to build industrystrength embedded projects. Undergraduate students are required to take 18349 prior to enrolling in this course. Graduate students are strongly encouraged to take 18613152131551318213 before or concurrently with this course.
Prerequisites: 18-349 (min C)
Offered: Spring 2027
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