E-TDD - Embedded Test Driven Development a Tool for Hardware-Software Co-design Projects

Test driven development (TDD) is one of the key Agile practices. A version of CppUnitLite was modified to meet the memory and speed constraints present on self-contained, high performance, digital signal processing (DSP) systems. The specific characteristics of DSP systems required that the concept of refactoring be extended to include concepts such as “refactoring for speed”. We provide an experience report describing the instructor-related advantages of introducing an embedded test driven development tool E-TDD into third and fourth year undergraduate Computer Engineering Hardware-Software Co-design Laboratories. The TDD format permitted customer (instructor) hardware and software tests to be specified as “targets” so that the requirements for the components and full project were known “up-front”. Details of CppUnitLit extensions necessary to permit tests specific for a small hardware-software co-design project, and lessons learnt when using the current E-TDD tool, are given. The next stage is to explore the use of the tool in an industrial context of a video project using the hybrid communication-media (HCM) dual core Analog Devices ADSP-BF561 Blackfin processor.