The program has been announced for this month's Embedded Systems Technical Conference, set for Oct. 17 and 18 in Birmingham, England. Said to be the U.K.'s largest forum for the embedded system design community, the event is co-located with the Embedded Systems Show (ESS) 2007.

This year's event features a new format for the technical conference, according to organizer EDA Exhibitions. The event will be divided into four tracks, each devoted to a specialist topic; one-hour advanced tutorials allow presenters to explore their themes in greater depth.

Track 1, devoted to Embedded Security, will feature a talk by Graeme Pinkney, head of threat intelligence at Symantec. In “The Changing Threat Landscape — What Does It Mean To You?” he will discuss what is happening and what strategies there are to protect systems against the threat of serious and organized Internet crime.

A second talk will cover “Authentication Techniques and Cryptography,” and will be delivered by Fred Piper, director of information security at the University of London and founder of Codes & Ciphers Ltd. The presentation will give an overview of a number of the problems that need to be addressed when designing an authentication scheme, outline some of the solutions that are available, and consider their relative merits and overheads.

Track 2, devoted to Future Embedded Systems Technologies, will feature an introduction to the new SP100 wireless industrial networking standard. Delivered by Tim Whittaker, systems architect for the wireless division of Cambridge Consultants, this will set out the work of the SP100 working groups, the technology being standardized, and its differences from other radio standards.

Track 3, on Design of Dependable Systems, will feature a talk on “Death, Taxes, and Requirements Change,” by Colin O'Halloran, director of systems assurance for QinetiQ. This will focus on ways to maintain software quality while achieving time and cost savings.

In the same track, “It's Not The Size that Matters But What You Do With it” will be the title of a presentation by Andy Nolan, chief software engineer for the Rolls-Royce controls systems department. This will look at the philosophy and practice of software measurement and project management, according to the organizers.

Finally, Track 4 will be devoted to “Model-Driven Design for Software.” Tony White, head of technology at Ultra Electronics Electrics, will deliver a paper called “The By-Wire Experience — A Distributed Application Development.” This talk will present a summary of a tri-party project where model-based design methodology was used to develop a drive-by-wire system utilizing time-triggered protocol.

Registration for the main ESS 2007 show is free to all, according to the organizers. Attending the Embedded Systems Technical Conference, meanwhile, costs 160 GBP per day, including lunch and refreshments plus a CDROM of all presentation slides. More information is available on the organizers' website here.

 
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