Inline Visualization and Manipulation of Real-Time Hardware Log for Supporting Debugging of Embedded Programs

2026-03-03

AI Summary

Debugging embedded programs is notoriously challenging due to tight software-hardware coupling, and existing tools often rely on external hardware probes or serial logging, resulting in low efficiency. This work proposes Inline, a novel programming tool that, for the first time, enables real-time inline visualization of hardware logs directly within source code. It introduces a domain-specific expression language to support programmable manipulation of logs, allowing developers to intuitively trace execution flow and precisely localize faults. Seamlessly integrated into standard embedded development environments, Inline significantly lowers the barrier to effective debugging. A user study with twelve participants demonstrates marked improvements in both debugging efficiency and accuracy when using the tool.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Logic Programming
• Natural Language Processing: Code Generation / Program Synthesis from Natural Language

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Graph embeddings and representation learning for Web-related graphs
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

The development of user-friendly embedded prototyping systems like Arduino has made creating interactive devices more accessible. However, debugging these systems is challenging due to the intertwined nature of software and hardware issues. Existing tools often require hardware instrumentation or log visualization through serial monitors. To address this, the authors designed Inline, a programming tool that simplifies debugging by displaying hardware logs directly within the code, providing real-time execution flow tracking and an expression language for log manipulation. A study with twelve users demonstrated the tool's effectiveness in aiding debugging tasks.

Problem

• embedded debugging
• hardware log
• inline visualization
• real-time monitoring
• software-hardware integration

Innovation

• inline visualization
• real-time hardware log
• embedded debugging
• expression language
• execution flow tracking