2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper introduces a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) framework to shape a
cutting-edge engineering Embedded Systems Laboratory course driven by industry needs as part
of the ongoing transformation of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of South
Florida. MBSE is a methodology followed to design, develop, and deliver a laboratory on
CANVAS, a learning management system accessed by all the students, Professors, and Teaching
Assistants (TA). This lab development and teaching strategies are also based on agile
methodologies integrated to enhance student’s system thinking with an industrial perspective.
These agile methodologies were integrated via incremental development, continuous verification,
and continuous integration to avoid significant upfront design and to work with
stakeholders.

This laboratory is a bridge to industry; it can help gain the essential techniques and skills in a
general context that can be applied to any embedded systems development. TRUE (Taking
Responsibility to Understand Engineering) Partners of the Electrical Engineering Department at
the University of South Florida help define the required skills based on the stakeholder, i.e.,
industry, student, Electrical Engineering Dept. It is important to highlight that over 70 % of the
Capstone projects in the Electrical Engineering Department feature an Embedded Systems
component. By design, the laboratory is a platform-agnostic learning approach that enables
students to learn different topics such as the Internet of Things (IoT), various types of debugging
circuits, the toolchain behind the development environment, cross-compilation tools, and
model-based hardware configuration tools along with version control system utilization.

The laboratory has been transformed, including the integration of new lab development tools and
hardware. Experiments using the LPCXpresso55S69 Microcontroller board by NXP will be
presented as a case study. Following the V-model from the Systems Engineering approach, a
Concept of Operations (ConOps) document was developed for the lab design to bridge the gap
between the skillset required by the industry and the learning objectives defined by the academic
program using Arm Cortex M33 architecture. This architecture enables a security foundation for
TrustZone®1 that protects valuable Intellectual Property (IP) and data. It also includes support for
dynamic encryption, decryption, and debug authentication. As a critical component of the
laboratory final project, students must show their design process throughout the development of
the final project. This continuous review helps to develop the spirit of constant verification and
validation process followed by industry. The final project includes analysis and simulations of the
final project design in the MBSE tool, weekly standups about their progress, design verification,
and final project validation.

This paper illustrates the course evaluation results for the newly developed undergraduate
embedded systems laboratory course. The course evaluation results include an exit survey and
various metrics such as enrollment, grade point averages, and completion rates. The results show
that the students could easily grasp the presented technical material. Finally, an agile MBSE
approach efficiently maximizes the student learning experience and meets the industry’s
ever-changing skillset requirement.