embedded-systems Archives

Verifying multi-threaded embedded systems with software tracing

Apr 3, 2026

Embedded software often also needs to meet real-time requirements. For example, a control system might have a requirement to output control signals to a motor controller every 5 milliseconds, where any additional delay is considered a failure. Such requirements are not only affected by the execution time of the specific thread, but also by dependencies on other threads. Thus, verifying real-time requirements is about more than measuring timing metrics. It is also about identifying potential risks from thread interactions that may affect the timing requirements.

So, how do you verify that a design is good from a multi-threading perspective?

Elektor TV – Percepio’s founder Johan Kraft on edge observability, RTOSes, Percepio Detect and more

Apr 2, 2026

Stuart Cording at Elektor Magazine interviews Percepio’s Johan Kraft at Embedded World in Nuremberg 2026. Covring topics like Tracealyzer, Percepio Detect, and RTOS runtime debugging and wider edge observability challenges. The discussion reinforces a familiar challenge in embedded development: many of the hardest bugs are not easy to reproduce in a halted debugger. Better runtime observability helps teams see what the system was actually doing, when it mattered most.

Seeing Inside the Scheduler

Mar 6, 2026

RTOS applications rarely fail because a single task is misbehaving. Instead, problems emerge from interactions that are often invisible at the code level.

SDV: Was BMWs jüngste Software-Investition verrät

Mar 4, 2026

Premium car manufacturers like BMW – companies with strong internal development expertise and decades of software experience – are investing in modern development tools to manage the growing complexity of today’s vehicle architectures.

Max Maxfield – “Well, Fork Me with a Dining Philosophers Problem”

Mar 1, 2026

One question I’m often asked—and one I often ask myself—is, “How many people are currently involved in developing embedded systems?” Counting engineers is a slippery problem (especially mechanical engineers, because they are often dripping in oil). I’d hazard a guess that there are probably between 2 and 4 million embedded professionals globally (depending on how we define ‘embedded’ and ‘professionals’), including both hardware designers and software/firmware developers.

Now I have another question for you. How many embedded system development teams around the world are using the tools from Percepio? The answer to this one is easy: “Not as many as there should be!”

“Keeping a close watch” – Percepio founder Johan Kraft interviewed on edge observability

Feb 24, 2026

In a case highlighted by debug specialist Percepio, a company building HVAC systems found, once again, a low-importance task failing to compete as expected. Once again, a watchdog timer reset the device. Without logs of what happened, they just looked like random reboots. With data captured by the targets themselves, developers obtained the clues they needed to create a fix.

…This kind of in-field observability is clearly not new. But it is taking on greater importance thanks to the proliferation of networked devices.

Percepio Detect and Tracealyzer – A Dynamic Duo for Complex Embedded Environments

Feb 19, 2026

The world of embedded systems evolves, with devices growing ever more sophisticated and software-centric. In this new landscape, with highly interconnected environments that defy traditional testing and debugging approaches, a reactive, fire-fighting mentality is no longer sufficient. Developers need a proactive strategy to gain continuous visibility into system behaviour—a strategy known as observability-driven development (ODD).

“With Observability, Debugging Can Start Directly From Real System Data”

Feb 16, 2026

A daunting task otherwise, Percepio’s Tracealyzer and Detect are changing the game of debugging embedded systems with real-time observability and faster fault resolution. Speaking to Johan Kraft and Andreas Lifvendahl, EFY’s Nidhi Agarwal explores how these tools are transforming development workflows. The hardest parts are timing-critical embedded systems, where adding instrumentation or software tracing introduces unacceptable overhead. It becomes even more challenging in heterogeneous systems built from third-party components, where we do not have full access to source code or internal behavior.

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