Android certification gets hands-on at DESIGN West

"Most people know Android as the operating system for smartphones and tablets, but when I look at Android, I don't see a smartphone operating system." says Bill Gatliff, an embedded Linux consultant who is track chair and one of three instructors at DESIGN West's Android Certificate Program. "I see an embedded system application framework based on an efficient Linux kernel."

At the two-day Android Certificate Program on April 22-23, designers will find out how to adapt the underlying Linux kernel powering the Android application framework to nearly any type of embedded system.

Attendees of the hands-on workshop will receive an Android Accessory Kit based on a board byArduino and a certificate from UBM Tech specifying that they completed the coursework."In the two-day session, what we are trying to do is expose the attendees to all the most important aspects of Android as they relate to embedded systems," said Gatliff.

As an application development framework, Google has added many turnkey features for smartphones and tablets to shield application programmers from the underlying Linux kernel, justifying Google's claim that Android is a smartphone and tablet operating system. However, for most embedded systems, it is necessary for designers to drop below the Android system-call level to deal directly with the Linux kernel. Attendees of the Android Certificate Program will learn all the ins-and-outs of accessing the Linux kernel for tasks that Android was not specifically designed to handle.

"The reason Android works so well for smartphones and tablets, is because smartphones and tablets are embedded systems with a graphical user interface," said Gatliff. "But the reason Android is at home in embedded environments, is because it is a really good application framework whether you need a graphical-user interface or not."

The Android Certificate Program is a hands-on tutorial showing engineer how to design embedded systems using Google's popular application framework.

Many embedded systems do not require a graphical user interface (GUI) or the other bells-and-whistles that Google has added to serve smartphone and tablet applications. Consequently, attendees of the Android Certificate Program will learn how get under the hood to strip-down Android to its underlying Linux kernel, then build it back up into a lean, mean OS for a specific embedded system.

The first day will familiarize attendees will all-things-Android, as they relate to the tasks of embedded systems designers--from "Hello Android" to data-stream acquisition from a Linux kernel device driver, post-processed by a user program, and controlled from the GUI.

On the second day, an exclusive hands-on embedded Android workshop will show attendees how to debug using kernel-side tools. Each attendee will be also supplied with their own Android Accessory Kit based on a board by Arduino housing a microprocessor running the Linux kernel. Three instructors--Mike Anderson, Ryan Kuester, and Bill Gatliff--will share the presentation responsibilities for the two-day Android Certificate Program on April 22-23.