Hardware/Software Co-Design using Proteus - A Case Study

Embedded controllers like Microprocessors or Micro-controllers for reactive real-time applications are implemented as mixed software-hardware systems. Generally, software is used for features and flexibility, while hardware is used for performance. Design of embedded systems can be subject to many different types of constraints, including timing, size, power consumption, reliability, and cost. Proteus supports the co-existence and interaction of different models of microcontroller based system design along with application software to facilitate mixed-mode system simulation and design. These features render Proteus suitable for hardware/software co-design. This case study demonstrates the implementation of hardware/software co-design technique by using Proteus for the development of Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) for acquiring analog signals from various locations inside Nuclear Power Plant - where the hardware comprises hard-core microcontroller, memory, UART & Analog to Digital Converter and the application software is the code running on these programmable microcontroller. These designs address issues related to system-level hardware/software partitioning of functionality and their co-simulation.