This document provides an overview of developing Android-based embedded systems. It discusses that Android is an open-source operating system used for mobile devices. It also describes the key components of an Android application, including activities, services, broadcast receivers and content providers. Intents allow interaction between application components. The document also outlines the Android software development kit and tools used for app development.
This document provides an overview of developing Android-based embedded systems. It discusses that Android is an open-source operating system used for mobile devices. It also describes the key components of an Android application, including activities, services, broadcast receivers and content providers. Intents allow interaction between application components. The document also outlines the Android software development kit and tools used for app development.
This document provides an overview of developing Android-based embedded systems. It discusses that Android is an open-source operating system used for mobile devices. It also describes the key components of an Android application, including activities, services, broadcast receivers and content providers. Intents allow interaction between application components. The document also outlines the Android software development kit and tools used for app development.
This document provides an overview of developing Android-based embedded systems. It discusses that Android is an open-source operating system used for mobile devices. It also describes the key components of an Android application, including activities, services, broadcast receivers and content providers. Intents allow interaction between application components. The document also outlines the Android software development kit and tools used for app development.
Android Open-source Linux-based operating system used for smartphones and tablet computers, owned by American company; Google The first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) was released by Google in 2007 First commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008.
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Android Versions
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Open Handset Alliance (OHA)
Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84[1] firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include : Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, TMobile, Sprint Corporation, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.
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Getting "Android" Two main pieces required to get Android working on your embedded system: Android-compatible Linux kernel and Android Platform
Android Platform is essentially a custom Linux distribution
containing the user space packages
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Hardware and Compliance
Requirements Android should run on any hardware that runs Linux. Android has in fact been made to run on ARM, x86, MIPS, SuperH, and PowerPC, all architectures supported by Linux. If you want to port Android to your hardware, you must first port Linux to it
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Android Concepts Developers must take a few key concepts into account when developing Android apps. These concepts shape the architecture of all Android apps and dictate what developers can and cannot do. Intents are one of the most important concepts in Android
Components of Android Application Android applications are made of loosely-tied components. Components of one app can invoke/use components of other apps There is no single entry point to an Android app: no main() function or any equivalent. There are predefined events called intents that developers can tie their components to, thereby enabling their components to be activated on the occurrence of the corresponding events
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Components of Android Application Four main types of components
Intents Intents are one of the most important concepts in Android
They are the late-binding mechanisms that allow components to
interact. The intent itself is a passive object.
It's the contents (payload), the mechanism used to fire it along
with the system's rules that will gate its behavior. Intents are tied to the type of component they are sent to. An intent sent to a service, for example, can only be received by a service Bindu C J Embedded Product Design
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Framework Intro Android also defines its own development framework, which allows developers to access functionality typically found in other development framework User Interface UI elements in Android include traditional widgets such as buttons, text boxes, dialogs, menus, and event handlers. Data Storage Security and Permissions Bindu C J Embedded Product Design
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App Development Tools
Android Software Development Kit (SDK). SDK, along with Eclipse, its corresponding Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin, and the QEMU-based emulator in the SDK, allow developers to do the vast majority of development work
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Native Development Native Development Kit (NDK) help developers to run
some C code natively
Mostly aimed at game developers APIs made available within the context of the NDK are mostly geared towards graphics rendering and sensor input retrieval. The infamous Angry Birds game, for example, relies heavily on code running natively. Bindu C J Embedded Product Design
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Native Development NDK used to port over an existing codebase to Android. C code developed for other mobile devices need not be rewritten in Java. Instead, you can use the NDK to compile it for Android and package it with some Java code to use some of the more Android specific functionality made available by the SDK
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Android's architecture
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Android's architecture-Linux Kernel
Linux kernel is the center-piece of all distributions traditionally labeled as "Linux, including mainstream distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian It's available in "vanilla" form from the Linux Kernel Archives Android developers patch the "vanilla" kernel to meet their
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Android's architecture-Wakelocks The most common use case of Linux's power management is a laptop computer. When the lid is closed on a laptop running
Linux, it will usually go into "sleep" mode
That modus operandi works fine for a laptop and desktop-like devices, but it doesn't fit mobile devices such as handsets Android's development team devised a mechanism that changes the above modus operandi to make them more palatable to such use cases. Instead of letting the system be put to sleep at the user's behest, an Androidized kernel is made to go to sleep as soon and as often as possible. And to keep the system from going to sleep while important processing is being done or while an app is waiting for the user's input, wakelocks are provided to keep the system awake Bindu C J Embedded Product Design
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Android's architecture- Low Memory
Killer Android's behavior is very much predicated on lowmemory conditions.
Hence, out-of-memory behavior is crucial.
Android development team has added an additional low memory killer to the kernel Android's low-memory killer weeds out processes hosting components that haven't been used in a long time and that are not high-priority Bindu C J Embedded Product Design
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Android's architecture- Binder
Binder is a cornerstone of Android's architecture Binder attempts to provide remote object invocation capabilities on top of a classic OS. Instead of re-engineering traditional OS concepts, Binder "attempts to embrace and transcend them. Hence, developers get the benefits of dealing with remote
services as objects without having to deal with a new OS.
