Abstract
This paper summarizes recent patents related to the use of graphical programming languages for the development of embedded computing applications. Patents in three specific areas of application are described in the paper. The first set of patents relates to general aspects of using graphical programming for applications targeted to embedded devices. The second area relates to the use of graphical programming environments to enable representations of system behavior using domain-specific “models of computation.” These models of computation may include control block diagrams, statecharts, textual math, etc. The third application area is the use of a graphical programming language to represent system behavior that may be targeted to any of a plurality of different embedded devices. In this case, the system behavior is abstracted to a general form and is not written in a manner that is specific to a particular device. Finally, the current and future developments in the field are briefly discussed.
Keywords: Graphical programming, embedded programming, embedded computing, statechart, finite state machine, hardware description language (HDL), field-programmable gate array (FPGA), microprocessor, digital signal processor (DSP), real-time
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