Difference between revisions of "BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2016"

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[[Category: OMAP]]
 
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[[Category: BeagleBoard]]
 
[[Category: BeagleBoard]]
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[[Category: GSoC]]
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__TOC__
  
 
=Welcome!=
 
=Welcome!=
BeagleBoard.org is seeking to be accepted as a mentoring organization in the [[BeagleBoard/GSoC|Google Summer of Code]] for 2010. We will be filing a [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Application|mentoring organization application]] by 2PM CST on March 12. If accepted as a mentoring organization, students will be applying March 18-March 29.  
+
BeagleBoard.org hopes to be accepted as a mentoring organization in the [[BeagleBoard/GSoC|Google Summer of Code]] for 2015! Below, we've collected project ideas for the GSoC-2015.
 +
 
 +
==Background==
 +
BeagleBoard.org is a volunteer organization that seeks to advance the state of open-source software on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware open-source hardware] platforms capable of running high-level languages and operating systems (primarily Linux) in embedded environments. Born from taking mobile phone processors and putting them on low-cost boards to build affordable desktop computers, BeagleBoard.org has evolved to focus on the needs of the "maker" community with greater focus on the I/O needed for controlling motors and reading sensors to build things like robots, 3d printers, flying drones, in-car computer systems and much more. Past BeagleBoard.org GSoC projects included [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_BotSpeak_PRU_Firmware|creating an interpreter for tiny CPUs]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_PyBBIO|adding SPI and sensor support to Python]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_Bone101|an HTML and git based tutorial sharing environment]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_BeaglePilot|porting autopilot software to Linux]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_BeagleLogic|an open source 100MHz 14-channel logic analyzer]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2014_Projects#Project:_Android_Remote_Display|using Android tablets as Linux displays]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2013_Projects#Linux_ADC_IIO_Support|putting ADC support in Linux under the IIO framework]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2013_Projects#Android-based_Boot|using Android phones as a network boot source]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2013_Projects#Userspace_Arduino|Running Arduino code on Linux]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2013_Projects#Robot_Operating_System|Robot Operating System support within the Yocto Project build system]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2013_Projects#Minix_I2C|Minix I2C support]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/C6Run|an RPC framework for heterogeneous processor communication]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/USBSniffer|a transparent USB packet sniffer]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/XBMC|ARM optimizations for XBMC]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/FFTW|ARM optimizations for FFTs]], [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/Pulse_Width_Modulation|make-shift pulse-width-modulation]] and [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/2010_Projects/OpenCV|RPC optimizations for OpenCV]]. BeagleBoard.org has benefited from sponsorship from Texas Instruments, [[CircuitCo]], Digi-Key, element14 and others, but avoids any dependence on that sponsorship for sustaining the effort. The project has evolved over the past few years with over 500,000 boards in circulation with developers worldwide and strong roots in the Linaro, Yocto Project, Angstrom Distribution, Debian and Linux communities---and support for running most major Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Android, Fedora, ArchLinux, Gentoo, Buildroot and many more.
 +
 
 +
BeagleBoard was inspiration for Raspberry Pi[http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/raspberry-pi-interview-eban-upton-reveals-all] and is available for about $50 through over 30 distributors world-wide (and is even available at Microcenter and Radio Shack in the USA), but is more than a throw-away computer. It is an instance of true open hardware, exposing users to the broader world of electronics, demystifying computers and fostering an environment of clones that have changed the industry for good.
 +
 
 +
Students will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of cross-compiling before being accepted, but support for demonstration is available through the IRC channel that typically has approximately 150 online chatters logged on at any time, most with sufficient experience to explain the process.
 +
 
 +
'''''<span style="color:red">Every accepted student will be sent a BeagleBone Black before the first week of coding for testing their project.</span>'''''
 +
 
 +
Additional hardware will be provided depending on need and value.
  
'''Background'''<br>
+
For more information, check out http://beagleboard.org and http://beagleboard.org/brief.
For a quick view of how the BeagleBoard relates to the open source development community, take a listen to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9xVbntl-DY Mans and Koen's interview with the Linux Outlaws]. The BeagleBoard is a popular [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware open-source hardware] project utilizing the first broadly available ARM Cortex-A8 processor. Over 10,000 people are experimenting with the BeagleBoard today to bring their ideas for the future of everywhere-computing to life and you can be one of them.
 
  
Because the BeagleBoard:
+
==Students looking for ideas==
* utilizes a complex SoC with 3 primary processing cores,
+
Student proposals can encompass projects inspired from the following list of ideas or can include personal project ideas. Previous Google Summer of Code projects show that the key to success is being passionate about your project, so propose something that is extremely interesting to you, even if it is not on this list. We will be glad to help students develop ideas into projects via [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=beagle-gsoc the BeagleBoard GSoC IRC] or [http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard-gsoc the BeagleBoard-GSoC mailing list]. There are many potential project ideas and we will match students to projects based on their interests and help scope the proposals to something that can be completed in the Summer of Code timeframe.
** one for general-purpose activities such as running Linux and applications (ARM Cortex-A8),
 
** one for running real-time signal processing algorithms (C64x+ VLIW fixed-point DSP), and
 
** one for rendering 3D graphics (Imagination SGX), and
 
* is specifically designed for low-power (typically running under 2W at full processing load), and
 
* has a very small foot-print that includes standard peripheral expansion like USB,
 
there are many opportunities to explore challenges in computer science in areas of
 
* optimal execution of applications/algorithms on additional instruction set architectures like ARM or C6000,
 
* splitting tasks appropriately between processing cores to minimize task execution time and power consumption, and
 
* integrating computation into new form-factors.
 
  
'''Students and mentors'''<br>
+
There are more than 500 existing projects listed at http://beagleboard.org/project. If you are interested in any of the projects listed on the BeagleBoard.org projects page, contact the project members to see if there are any aspects of their projects that can be enhanced to create a GSoC project. There are also several ideas on the [[ECE497_Project_Ideas|ECE497 class project idea list]]. You can also check out [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2014|last year's idea page]].
Student proposals can create projects from the following ideas or propose their own project based on their own ideas. From reading about previous Google Summer of Code projects, the key to success is being passionate about your project, so propose something that is extremely interesting to you, even if it not on the list. We will be glad to help students develop ideas into projects on [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=beagle the BeagleBoard IRC] or [http://groups.google.com/beagleboard the BeagleBoard mailing list]. There are many more ideas of what can be done and we will match projects to students interest and help scope the proposal to something that can be completed in the Summer of Code time-frame.
 
  
There are more than 100 exiting projects list at http://beagleboard.org/project. If you are interested in one of those projects, talk with the project members to see if there are any aspects of their projects with which they can help you contribute.
+
==Mentors wondering where to help==
 +
Please start by registering your ideas for student projects below by following the template provided with the existing ideas. Furthermore, scroll down to the bottom and give everyone a bit of information about your expertise and availability by adding yourself to the table. Jason will make final approvals for mentor assignments based on if we first get accepted as a mentoring organization and best matching mentor skill sets with student project ideas deemed valuable to the community.
  
__TOC__
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You will also need to register on [https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2015 Melange] and request to be a mentor for BeagleBoard.org.
  
=General requirements=
+
==General requirements==
 
All projects have the following basic requirements:
 
All projects have the following basic requirements:
* The project must be registered on http://beagleboard.org/project.
+
# Once accepted, the project must be registered on http://beagleboard.org/project.
* All newly generated materials must be released under an [http://www.opensource.org/licenses open source license].
+
# All newly generated materials must be released under an [http://www.opensource.org/licenses open source license].
* Individual students shall retain copyright on their works.
+
# Individual students shall retain copyright on their works.
* Source code generated during the project must be released on gitorious.org, github.com, repo.or.cz, sourceforge, code.google.com, gforge.ti.com, or omapzoom.org.
+
# Source code generated during the project must be released on github.com (to be cloned to github.com/beagleboard on successful completion).
* The registration on http://beagleboard.org/project must include an RSS feed with project announcements and updates at every milestone.  Sources for the RSS feed should be blogger.com, wordpress.com, or some other established blog hosting service with known reliability.
+
# The registration on http://beagleboard.org/project must include an RSS feed with project announcements and updates at every milestone.  Sources for the RSS feed should be blogger.com, wordpress.com, or some other established blog-hosting service with known reliability.
* To help you to break your project down into manageable chunks and also help the project's mentors to better support your efforts, weekly project status reports should be e-mailed to the project's mentors and the organization administrator (Jason Kridner). Each status report should outline:
+
# To help you to break your project down into manageable chunks and also to help the project's mentors to better support your efforts, weekly project status reports should be e-mailed to the project's mentors and the organization administrator (Jason Kridner). Each status report should outline:
** what was accomplished that week,  
+
## what was accomplished that week,  
** any issues that prevented that week's goals from being completed, and
+
## any issues that prevented that week's goals from being completed and
** your goals for the next week.
+
## your goals for the next week.
 +
# Students will provide two recorded audio/video presentations uploaded to youtube or vimeo (screencasts are appropriate), one near the beginning of the project summarizing their project goals and another in the wrap-up phase to summarize their accomplishments.  Examples can be found on http://beagleboard.org/gsoc.
 +
# Students will demonstrate their ability to cross-compile and utilize version control software by creating a "Hello World" application and generating a pull request to https://github.com/jadonk/gsoc-application/tree/master/ExampleEntryJasonKridner.  For assistance, please visit http://beagleboard.org/chat or utilize the beagleboard-gsoc Google Group.  The "Hello World" application must print your name and the date out in an ARM Linux environment.  Freely available emulators may be used to test your application or you can ask anyone on the chat or mailing list to help you test.
 +
# All projects will produce reusable software components and will not be "what–I-built-over-my-summer-vacation" projects. Including a hardware component is welcome, but the project *deliverable* will be software that may be utilized by a wide audience of the BeagleBoard.org community.
 +
 
 +
=Ideas=
 +
==Linux kernel support for embedded devices and interfaces==
 +
Improving the state of the Linux kernel, especially with regards to embedded devices and interfaces. Includes improved ARM/OMAP/Sitara platform support, simplifying the development of add-on hardware for embedded systems and exchanging hardware connectivity information with userspace.
 +
 
 +
===BeaglePilot 2.0: Making underwater drones===
 +
In a nutshell, the idea is to create an underwater vehicle (submarine) for the APM autopilot using/porting the OpenROV code/infraestructure, an open hardware submarine. The APM code should be extended and create a new kind of vehicle (e.g.: APMSubmarine).
 +
 
 +
''Goal:'' Add an underwater drone vehicle class to the APM autopilot using the OpenROV work.<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' PPM, PWM, PRUSS<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C, C++, nodejs, processing <br>
 +
''Possible Mentors:'' Víctor Mayoral Vilches, Alejandro Hernández Cordero, Iñigo Muguruza Goenaga<br>
 +
''Workload:'' 1 student full time. <br>
 +
''GitHub:'' https://github.com/beaglepilot2<br>
 +
''References:'' https://github.com/OpenROV/openrov-software, https://github.com/OpenROV/openrov-software-arduino<br>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
===BeagleRT: Real-Time Linux with the BeagleBone Black===
 +
Assessment of the real-time limitations and capabilities with the BeagleBone Black.
 +
<br>
 +
 
 +
* vanilla kernel
 +
* vanilla with PREEMPT option
 +
* PREEMPT_RT patches
 +
* Xenomai patches
 +
* PRUSS
 +
 
 +
''Goal:'' Many applications require a certain degree of real-time response. This project will analyze, test and compare the different approaches for providing Real-Time responses with the BeagleBone Black development board.<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' PRU, PPM, PWM, PRUSS<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C, C++, Python, Assembly<br>
 +
''Possible Mentors:'' Steve Arnold<br>
 +
''Workload:'' 1 student full time. <br>
 +
''GitHub:'' https://github.com/BeagleRT/BeagleRT<br>
 +
''References:'' https://www.osadl.org/fileadmin/dam/rtlws/12/Brown.pdf<br>
  
=Improve open source support for ARM=
+
===Upstreaming Beagleboard.org Kernel Patches===
These projects fundamentally improve support of open source products on ARM, bringing the broad body of high-level open source applications into smaller, lower-cost, lower-power systems that can go anywhere.
+
The BeagleBone currently relies on a number of out-of-tree kernel patches in order to boot. These patches are maintained by Koen Kooi (CircuitCo) and come from many sources, including TI employees and various mailing lists. Getting more of these patches upstream would make it easier to boot a BeagleBone and also make use of a BeagleBone easier for users and kernel developers who need to track upstream kernel changes, or who otherwise need to be closer to the bleeding edge of Linux kernel development. The current patch set is [https://github.com/beagleboard/kernel/tree/3.8 maintained at github] and contains scripts to easily patch an upstream kernel. The scripts in this repository are used to build the BeagleBoard.org kernels which ship with the Angstrom SD card images.
 +
<br>
  
==UEFI bootloader for ARM==
+
''Goal:'' Push as many patches as possible to [http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git Linus's mainline kernel tree] via the appropriate [http://git.kernel.org/cgit/ staging kernels] for the subsystems involved.<br>
''Goal:'' <br>
+
''Existing Project:'' [http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git The Mainline Linux Kernel], [http://github.com/beagleboard/kernel/tree/3.8 patches needing to be pushed]<br>
''Existing project:'' [http://beagleboard.org/project/tianocore Tianocore]<br>
+
''Hardware Skills:'' Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals.<br>
''Hardware skills:'' Configure hardware at boot<br>
+
''Software Skills:'' Able to write software in C, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation and testing.<br>
''Software skills:'' C, ARMv7 assembly<br>
+
''Possible mentors:'' Matt Porter, Matt Ranostay, Koen Kooi, Alan Ott<br>
''Possible mentors:'' _TBD_<br>
 
  
==Open source JTAG debugging==
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===IIO debugging tools===
Implement, configure and document a complete open source based JTAG debugging development chain for ARM Cortex A8 in OMAP3 used on Beagle Board. This includes final port of open source JTAG software [[BeagleBoardOpenOCD|OpenOCD]] for OMAP3 on Beagle, and then configure and document all software (and hardware) components involved. This could look like:
+
Quick background: IIO is the new way of doing sensors but being a newer interface, it lacks tools
 +
for debugging. This project is to produce sometools to debug drivers.
 +
There are several ways this project can happen:<br>
 +
1. We can implement userland tools that read IIO data similar to the evtest tool. <br>
 +
2. We can implement a event handler for the IIO driver. This way existing tools and code can be used. There was references from another mailing list (probally LKML) talking about this.<br>
  
''ARM Cortex A8 <-> OMAP3 <-> BeagleBoard <-> Flyswatter (*)'' <-> OpenOCD <-> GDB <-> Eclipse (CDT)
+
''Goal:'' Userspace application similar to evtest that captures debug events and instrumented IIO driver code to produce those events.<br>
 +
''Existing Project:'' [http://github.com/beagleboard/kernel/tree/3.8 patched kernel with IIO driver]<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' None.<br>
 +
''Software Skills:''C coding (1), (2) requires kernel coding<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Hunyue Yau<br>
  
(*) Note: [[BeagleBoardJTAG#TinCanTools_Flyswatter|Flyswatter]] is used as example JTAG dongle here. All OpenOCD JTAG dongles able to deal with 1.8V and configure EMUx pins correctly can be used.
+
===MMC and DMA Linux performance ===
 +
Improving performance of MMC driver by understanding issues, improving MMC, DMA drivers and eliminating bottlenecks.
  
''Goal:'' Able to single step kernel code using OpenOCD, GDB, and Eclipse<br>
+
''Goal:''  
''Existing project:'' [http://beagleboard.org/project/OpenOCD+OMAP3+JTAG+support/ OpenOCD]<br>
+
Both MMC and DMA are critical to high performance of I/O intensive workloads on a Beagleboard/ARM platform, even fast system boot up depends on it.
''Hardware skills:'' Able to monitor logic-level digital signals<br>
 
''Software skills:'' C, ARMv7 assembly<br>
 
''Possible mentors:'' Dirk Behme, _TBD_<br>
 
  
==Linux kernel improvements==
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A good amount of performance improvement is possible just by identifying what's going on in hot paths and how things can be done more simply, without breaking anything else. Also improvements are possible using innovative techniques such as intelligent buffer allocation and reducing overhead where possible in dependent components such as DMA. Cutting the fat in hot paths is definitely a start.
Several improvements are desired in the Linux kernel to make it more useful for embedded/device applications.
+
 
 +
''Existing Project:'' [http://kernel.org Upstream Kernel]<br/>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Yes<br/>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C, Possible use of JTAG, ftrace, perf etc.<br/>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Joel Fernandes
 +
===Enhance ADC driver for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black===
 +
Improve the onboard ADC to support more features provided by the hardware. The hardware supports
 +
things like periodic sampling and averaging along with the ability to schedule the different channels
 +
and allow them to be configured differently.
 +
 
 +
''Goal:'' The Beagleboard.org community lacks a common unified way of accessing the different features available on the ADC. Some of these hacks such as attempts at periodic sampling squaders hardware resources on the BeagleBone when in reality the ADC block can do it directly. The goal is to create
 +
a drive with a plan to upstream that will expose these additional features. It should try to coordinate with the current driver maintainer. The coordination and upstreaming parts needs to be
 +
weighed and considered due to the limited GSoC time frame.
 +
 
 +
''Existing Project:'' <br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Yes<br>
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''Software Skills:'' C<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Hunyue Yau (others welcome to volunteer)
 +
===Common bootloader for different all the BeagleBone/BeagleBoards===
 +
Create a common bootloader for all the different BeagleBone/BeagleBoards. Currently, the
 +
BBX/BBC share a common bootloader and the BBW/BBB share another one. Other boards such
 +
as the upcoming new board uses yet another.
 +
''Goal:'' Unified as many of the different bootloaders as possible. This in particular
 +
focuses on the critical SPL (initial bootloader). The challenge will be working with
 +
the limited hardware resources and differences during the initial bootloader. This initial
 +
bootloader has to fit into internal memory, configure memory, and load u-boot.
 +
''Existing Project:'' <br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Yes<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Hunyue Yau (others welcome to volunteer)
 +
 
 +
==ARM processor support in open source operating systems and libraries==
 +
Optimizations to applications and libraries like XBMC to make them run better on resource constrained environments or to take advantage of more specialized processing elements.
 +
 
 +
===Library of Arduino-compatible functions for StarterWare===
 +
This would be an implementation of Arduino utilizing the BeagleBone Black and the StarterWare O/S independent library for accessing the hardware. Without having to access the hardware through an operating system, developers will be able to fine-tune the system to achieve optimal resource management of the CPU, peripherals and memory.
 +
The project would also include basic documentation and generation of code samples for various functionality of the library, such as SPI,Serial,Ethernet for starters. This would make the project thorough and ready for use by various developers in the community.
 
   
 
   
''Goal:'' <br>
+
''Goal:'' Utilize the Energia fork of Arduino to push support for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black<br>
''Existing project:'' [http://beagleboard.org/project/linux linux-omap]<br>
+
''Existing Project:'' [https://github.com/energia/Energia Energia], [http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/StarterWare StarterWare]<br>
''Software skills:'' C, ARMv7 assembly (desired), Linux kernel driver development<br>
+
''Hardware Skills:'' Yes<br>
''Possible mentors:'' Kevin Hilman, Tony Lindgren, Khasim Syed Mohammed, Russell King<br>
+
''Software Skills:'' C/C++<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Jason Kridner (others can be referred if there are interested students)
 +
 
 +
==Heterogeneous co-processor support in open source operating systems and libraries==
 +
Enabling usage of DSPs, PRUs, FPGAs, Cortex-M3s, Arduinos, MSP430 launchpads and other attached processing platforms.
 +
 
 +
===PRU Bridge===
 +
The aim of the project is to create a multi channel userspace Linux to PRU bridge (driver). Developers should be able to send and receive data seamlessly from the ARM or PRU. On the Linux side each channel will be represented by a file, and writing to a channel is a simple file write operation. Similarly if the client program on Linux want to read, it will read the file corresponding to the channel. On the PRU side, there will be a event loop listening to any events on any channels. If there is valid data on any channel, the corresponding callback is called.<br>
 +
 
 +
Currently the widely used libprussdrv supports exporting of 'interrupts' via sysfs, but no clean way of data transfer. The PRU-bridge will be a remote proc based sysfs driver. Channels here are generic, will enable export of data and interrupts to userspace. [Each channel could carry it's own semantic meaning, completely upto the developer].<br>
  
===More detailed kernel improvement ideas===
+
Internally the kernel driver will maintain a shared memory circular buffer for each channel, and read or write on a sysfs file will result in an "upcall-downcall" action (a method in which the kernel and PRU interact). Different channels could be specialized for different requirements (i.e. one channel could be fine tuned for block transfers, another for a stream interface).<br>
'''USB device audio support'''<br>
 
The Linux USB gadget infrastructure doesn't have audio device class support (but Linux does have [http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x319.html USB host audio] support.  There is some work on a [http://docs.blackfin.uclinux.org/doku.php?id=gadget_midi gadget MIDI audio driver].  Some work has been done over at [http://blackfin.uclinux.org/gf/project/uclinux-dist/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=4212 Blackfin], but is reported as not working very well. Getting USB isochronous endpoint, gadget audio driver connected to audio on BeagleBoard would be beneficial to all OMAP3 isochronous USB needs, better isochronous gadget support in Linux (there are no standard gadgets test for isochronous endpoints), and a prove out a real gadget driver that requires isochronous endpoints.  Anyone wanting to learn about communication protocols, a well designed layered communication implementation, and a chance to work at the driver level will enjoy this project.
 
  
=Improve open source support of heterogeneous multicore processing=
+
This project will also require the student to develop a Node.js/Python based API to communicate with the PRU.<br>
==Vala bindings for Codec Engine algorithms==
+
Another interesting add on would be if the driver supported dynamic pin-muxing when prompted by the PRU. (i.e. can the PRU tell the kernel to enable h/w PWM on particular pins (instead of GPIO)?)<br>
''Goal:'' _TBD_<br>
+
'''Having a standardized driver like this will eliminate the need for writing separate drivers as in the case of applications like [https://github.com/deepakkarki/pruspeak pruspeak].'''
''Existing project:'' [http://beagleboard.org/project/disptec dispTEC]<br>
 
''Software skills:'' C, Vala, _TBD_<br>
 
''Possible mentors:'' Todd Fischer, Diego Dompe, _TBD_<br>
 
  
==Erlang for ARM and C6000 in heterogeneous compute environments==
 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_%28programming_language%29 Erlang] is a concurrent programming language that can theoretically be used to spread tasks across the processing cores on a BeagleBoard or across BeagleBoards on a network.  There is a project advancing on putting Erlang on the BeagleBoard and I'm sure there will be some additional tasks that could be suitable for GSoC students.
 
  
''Goal:'' Distribute tasks across multiple BeagleBoards and between the ARM and DSP processors on a BeagleBoard using Erlang.<br>
+
''Goal'': Develop a driver to enable a robust communication channels b/w Linux userspace and PRU.<br>
''Software skills:'' Erlang, _TBD_<br>
+
''Existing project'': small writeup available at [https://github.com/deepakkarki/pru_serial pru_serial_doc] and high level python API [https://gist.github.com/alexanderhiam/4310934a026b79fc8c65 RPC example]<br>
''Possible mentors:'' Marcus Taylor, _TBD_<br>
+
''Hardware skills:'' Knowledge of Linux system programming, basic understanding of Device Driver, PRU architecture.<br>
 +
''Software skills:'' Good knowledge of C, working knowledge of Python/Node.js<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Deepak Karki, Alexander Hiam<br>
  
==Simple SDK for building ANSI C code for heterogeneous slave processors under Linux==
+
===PRUSS Support for the newer kernels===
''Goal:'' <br>
 
''Existing project:'' [https://gforge.ti.com/gf/project/dspeasy/ DSPEasy]<br>
 
''Software skills:'' C, JavaScript, shell scripting<br>
 
''Mentors:'' Jason Kridner, Daniel Allred<br>
 
  
=Useful applications to implement=
+
Until now, libprussdrv has been the first point of contact for a prospective user of the Programmable Real-Time Units present on the BeagleBone Black. However in GSoC 2014 the two projects targeting the PRUs - BeagleLogic and BotSpeak worked on the remoteproc framework of the Linux kernel for the PRUs which was found to give better results.  
==x86 emulation on ARM and/or DSP==
 
Development or tuning the an emulator like qemu to emulate the x86 instruction set at a reasonable speed to run legacy x86 apps developed for another non Linux OS. Possibilities include Windows 9x, 2000, etc. An alternative approach to use qemu to emulate an x86 Linux system and run Wine up top of that. Yet another approach might be to add an emulation engine inside wine. The goals is to be able to run x86 applications. The OS is optional.
 
  
''Goal:'' <br>
+
However, not everyone should need to hack the kernel and the drivers for buiding their projects and as such a proper lightweight message passing framework and firmware loading infrastructure would increase the utility of the PRUs that are on board the BeagleBone (Black).
''Hardware skills:'' n/a<br>
 
''Software skills:'' C, x86 assembly, ARMv7 assembly<br>
 
''Possible mentors:'' _TBD_<br>
 
''Complexity:'' High<br>
 
  
==Speech recognition==
+
Possible design goals of the new framework:
https://gforge.ti.com/gf/project/tiesr/
 
  
''Existing project:'' http://beagleboard.org/project/tiesr<br>
+
* '''Upstreaming''' The idea is to have support for the PRU in the mainline kernel and not in another "vendor" kernel. <br>Thus the entire framework has to be written keeping the Kernel coding guidelines so that the patch will be ready for submission to the LKML soon by the end of the coding period.
''Possible mentors:'' Lorin Netsch, Sourabh Ravindran<br>
 
  
==Android running as a windowed application==
+
* '''Simple and easy-to-use API''' Need to generate examples, documentation and keep the API as simple and straightforward as possible. There is no point in having yet another PRU framework if no one is using it.
Modify Android to work within an embedded system as a windowed application.
 
  
''Goal:'' <br>
+
* '''Language-Agnostic''' Whether one swears by C, uses Python or is a JavaScript programmer, everyone can use the same basic API and objects to leverage the processing capabilities of the PRU. <br>Alexander Hiam posts a sample [https://gist.github.com/alexanderhiam/4310934a026b79fc8c65 gist] which could be used as a starting point.
''Hardware skills:'' n/a<br>
 
''Software skills:'' Java, C, shell scripting<br>
 
''Possible mentors:'' Jason Kridner, Katie Roberts-Hoffman, _TBD_<br>
 
''Complexity:'' High<br>
 
  
==XBMC Media Center to Beagle Board==
+
* '''Lightweight''' The PRU is optimized for low latency memory access and I/O operations, be it toggling a GPIO, generating stepping pulses or controlling large streams of WS2812B LED strip modules or sampling GPIOs at regular intervals into RAMLarger messages increase this overhead.
XBMC is an open-source, cross platform media center that would allow you to display high definition video on your TV that is streamed from your local network or the internet.  XBMC on Beagle Board would would be a very low cost, low power platform that would allow the media center to literally be embedded ''in'' the TV.  XBMC could run on an Ubuntu distribution of Linux and would requiring the development of OpenGL ES complaint DirectFBGL drivers.   
 
  
''Complexity:'' High<br>
+
* '''Support for interrupts to userspace''' The ability to get a callback from the PRUs to userspace or kernel space (according to need of the application). A kernel module may be able to "attach" and "detach" itself from the main pru-remoteproc driver to extend its functionality if so needed.
  
=Maker-style projects that advance general knowledge for creating and improving end products for consumers=
+
* '''Memory Management''' The ability to allocate shared buffers of arbitrary size shared between the PRU and the kernel if required.
==Intelligent thermostat that utilizes weather forcasts==
 
Improve the thermostatic control of a domestic heating system by more intelligent control based on the analysis of forecast weather.
 
Enable remote control of the system through IP Internet access.
 
  
''Complexity:'' Medium<br>
+
The list as such is not exhaustive and prospective students / developers are encouraged to participate and edit this section with possible suggestions to make the PRUSS programming more productive and accessible to everyone.
  
=To be classified=
+
''Goal'': Create a new mainline kernel-friendly infrastructure that leverages functionality of the PRU<br>
=== BeaglePOD ===
+
''Existing project'': BeagleLogic, PRUSpeak, <br>
'''Easy'''
+
''Hardware skills:'' Understanding of basic embedded systems.<br>
MP3 player based on Beagle Board. This could involve porting Rockbox (www.rockbox.org) - an open source firmware for mp3 players to Beagle Board. Additional effort would involve creating Rockbox plugins to port the audio decoders and encoders to the DSP side. MTP device class support need to be added on USB as well.
+
''Software skills:'' Able to write software in C, understand existing patches with PRU support, PRU Assembly. create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Kumar Abhishek<br>
  
=== BeagleChat ===
+
===PRU upstreaming===
'''Easy'''
+
Remove HWMOD dependency requirement for PRU along with adding device tree bindings so it can be upstreamed into Linus's tree.
Video Chat Client on Beagle Board. Porting Ekiga (www.ekiga.org) - an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. The client should be able to talk to ekiga software running on PC as well as another beagle board. Optimizations would involve porting audio and video codecs on Ekiga to DSP plus supporting video streaming over USB for webcam support.
 
  
===Fast Linux boot===
+
''Goal'': Push patches to Linux mainline providing support for the AM335x PRU<br>
Beagle variant of "from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds" make a beagle that starts in < 5 seconds
+
''Existing project'': https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/<br>
 +
''Hardware skills:'' Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals<br>
 +
''Software skills:'' Able to write software in C, understand existing patches with PRU support, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Start with Jason Kridner and Matt Porter, but we'll get some others involved<br>
  
Modify Beagle boot loader and OS to boot in < 5 seconds. While for desktop systems boot time might not be critical, for an embedded system like Beagle Board it often is. For an embedded system there often are external requirements which need fast boot to react properly to external events. For example external sensor signals, user input or even wake up signals in extremely deep sleep which needs re-start of operating system.
+
===PRU firmware loader===
 +
Allow "firmware" which are really binary PRU applications to be loaded directly on PRU cores and executed using the request_firmware() functionality of the Linux Kernel. This should also be Cape Manager to load PRU cape specific applications.
  
For Linux OS, there are already several resources how to reduce boot time available, e.g. [[Boot_Time|boot time]] and [[Suspend_To_Disk_For_ARM|suspend to disk for ARM]] articles.
+
Ideal workflow:
  
Review, select, and apply some of the known technologies for BeagleBoard.
+
* Cape detected that uses the PRU
 +
** Setup pinmux
 +
* Find the respective firmware file for PRU core (or both cores) /lib/firmware/cape_A020_pru0.bin
 +
* Load onto PRU and begin execution.
  
Ideally, should come up to a GUI prompt, such as with Android, Angstrom, or Ubuntu.
+
''Goal'': Push patches to Linux mainline providing support to loading firmware on PRU cores and executing<br>
 +
''Existing project'': https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/<br>
 +
''Hardware skills:'' Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals<br>
 +
''Software skills:'' Able to write software in C, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Matt Ranostay, Matt Porter<br>
  
=== Ogg Theora integration into Firefox and performance improvements ===
+
===Program PRU using high-level scripting languages===
'''Medium'''
+
Based on Chris Roger's BotSpeak work to provide a virtual machine for typical Arduino functions that can be accessed from LabView, build a virtual machine to enable PRU programming from Bonescript. The virtual machine is a simple interpreter that loops over the commands to perform such as delay, pinMode, analogRead, analogWrite, digitalRead and digitalWrite functions.
Codec Engine (C64x+) implementation of Ogg Theora
 
  
There was a Neuros GSoC project to port Ogg Theora to the C64x+ last year, but it was never finished.  See the [http://wiki.neurostechnology.com/index.php/Summer_of_Code_2008/Ogg_Theora_Codec Neuros project page] to understand the status.
+
A basic design is elaborated upon at http://github.com/jadonk/pruduino
  
=Raw ideas that need to be fleshed out=
+
''Goal'': Implement a BotSpeak interpreter that off-loads hard real-time tasks from Bonescript onto the PRU and include that in the BoneScript project<br>
Some additional ideas can be found on the [[BeagleBoard/contest|BeagleBoard contest page]] and the [http://beagleboard.org/project BeagleBoard project page].
+
''Existing projects'': [http://github.com/jadonk/pruduino PRUDUINO], http://github.com/beagleboard/am335x_pru_package, http://github.com/jadonk/bonescript, [https://sites.google.com/site/botspeak/the-language Chris' language definition]<br>
* VNC client on Beagle board: '''Done/Easy'''
+
''Hardware skills:'' Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals<br>
Enable Virtual Network Computing on Beagle board to allow remote access to desktops. TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com/index.html) derived from VNC can be ported to a Embedded Linux distribution. 
+
''Software skills:'' Able to write software in JavaScript and assembly<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Chris Rogers, Jason Kridner<br>
  
* Ubuntu Mobile on Beagle MID: '''Done/Easy'''
+
===Linux on C6x===
Porting ubuntu mobile version on Beagle board (http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu) and enable support for standard applications used in standard internet tablets/MIDs - media player, browser.
+
Execute Linux on the C6x core on the BeagleBoard, BeagleBoard-xM and BeagleBoard-X15.
  
* NEON Support for FFTW: '''Medium'''
+
''Goal'': Submit patches to the mainline Linux kernel for building a suitable kernel.
[http://www.fftw.org| FFTW] is a library for calculating the [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FastFourierTransform.html| Fast Fourier Transform]. The current implementation of FFTW contains SIMD optimizations for several instructions sets. It should be possible to add optimizations for the NEON SIMD co-processor in the Beagle Board. FFTW is widely used in the open source sommunity and this project would make FFTW far more useful on processors with NEON instructions. The mentor is particularly interested in improving GNU Radio on the OMAP3 and improving FFTW performance would be very useful.
+
''Existing project'': http://linux-c6x.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page<br>
 +
''Hardware skills'': Able to read processor technical reference manual and comprehend it.<br>
 +
''Software skills'': Must be familiar with Linux bring-up.<br>
 +
''Possible mentors'': Jadon Kridner<br>
  
* Voice recognition integrated into Ubiquity: '''Medium'''
+
==Interesting Applications for PRU Processing==
Integrate Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Ubiquity, and voice recognition on the BeagleBoard with a microphone.  Use of a Wiimote could provide additional interactive capabilities.
 
  
* Audio-based translator: '''Medium'''
+
===Using BeagleBone PRUs to control CNC and 3D printer stepper motor Drivers===
Utilizing voice recognition on the BeagleBoard with a microphone, submit text to Google Translator, then perform text-to-speech.
+
This project is to write code for the PRU (realtime processors on the AM335x used in the Beagle Bone) so that it can generate multiple step and direction outputs based on a queue of commands in real time. This needs to be done in real time so the acceleration and coordination of multiple stepper motors can be controlled and coordinated. A step/dir signal is commonly used in a lot of stepper motor drivers. While it is possible to generate stepper phase information from the PRU, it is also undesireable from a testing stand point. An example of a reason for doing this is controlling the X/Y directions of the head of a 3D printer so that it can generate precise curves. While similar code has been done, it is not done in a real time fashion so it is difficult to add coordination between motors and/or maintain a known acceleration.<p>
  
* Spectrum analyzer using the DSP: '''Medium'''
+
The result of this code should be something interfaceable to a control system like the non realtime portions of the Linux CNC project (formerly the EMC project). But as a demo, this same code should also demonstrate a node.js functionality such as a "G-code" interpreter. This node.js portion can be considered a second project due to the different skill sets required and ideally this project would be split between two GSoC students. One project would be working mostly on PRU assembly with integration into the Linux kernel. The other project would be working mostly on userspace JavaScript in node.js and C++ code for anything needing optimization or low-level kernel access. Mentors would heavily assist on defining the right interfaces between the two programming environments.
Write a program that uses the DSP to take an alsa input and to all the math and a GUI on the arm that display the realtime spectrum. The DSP side needs to use xdais so other DSP programs can run at the same time.
 
  
* Android integrated into embedded distributions: '''Medium'''
+
''Goal'': create code to use the AM335x PRUs to generate multiple step and direction outputs for reprap and CNC applications<br>
Utilize Open Embedded to build Android including Android kernel patches and integration of accelerated multimedia. Add the 'repo' tool to Open Embedded to pull the Android open source code, apply kernel patches, and patch Android to utilize OpenGLES and GStreamer with the GStreamer-TI plugins.  Android file system would co-exist with Angstrom file system.
+
''Existing projects'': [http://github.com/beagleboard/am335x_pru_package Pru Documentation], [https://www.kernel.org/doc/htmldocs/uio-howto.html UIO Driver documentation]<br>
 +
''Hardware skills:'' Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals<br>
 +
''Software skills:'' Assembly and C coding. Node.js for g-code interpretation<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:''Jason Kridner, Hunyue Yau, Laine Walker-Avina<br>
  
* Cairo support for OpenVG: '''Medium'''
+
===Real-time Data Acquisition and Processing===
Cairo has an experimental openvg backend (found at http://lists.cairographics.org/archives/cairo/2008-January/012833.html). And there is some work that shows noticeable performance improvements on top level applications like webkit (http://www.atoker.com/blog/2008/01/28/accelerating-webkit-with-openvg/).
+
Use PRUs to process data from sensors and/or imaging devices. Deployment scenario could be solar-powered remote sensor nodes or cubesats (1-U or larger). Example applications might include:
 +
<br>
  
* Port MPlayer or GStreamer with DSP codec support: '''Medium'''
+
* Use ultasonic transducers to make a 3-axis sonic anemometer (ie, use PRUs to calculate speed-of-sound in the x-y-z directions and derive orthogonal wind components).
GStreamer is a multimedia package that handles streaming and file playback for a variety of multimedia files. The port was done for DaVinci, it would be cool to have a simiilar port done for Beagleboard. http://focus.ti.com/dsp/docs/dspsplash.tsp?contentId=3100
+
* Capture and process 4 image bands simulatneously (eg, B,G,R,NIR).
 +
* Capture and process high-frequency sensor data, eg, geomagnitic field components
  
There's a lot of work done in the GStreamer arena: [[BeagleBoard/gst-openmax]] and there's also the [http://github.com/felipec/gst-dsp gst-dsp]. These projects are targeted for the [[BeagleBoard/DSP_Howto|bridgedriver]].
+
====Orbital Imaging Cubesat====
 +
This is essentially a prototype project for both a skeleton software framework and sensor integration (eg, via SPI, I2C, depending on data rates, etc) to process data in real-time on PRUs.  Should leverage both existing hardware projects (eg, proto-cape, other) or suitable sensor breakout board(s) and software projects (and potentially other GSoC projects) as much as possible.  The ultimate goal is a small cubesat-based orbital imaging platform, one or more "U" in size (the minimum necessary), specifically collect/process high quality magnetometer data, and hopefully detect other objects, calculate an acquisition data vetcor, etc. This requires both high-res data acquisition/processing and generation of real-time pointing data (otherwise known as acquisition data) for use by onboard cameras or external systems.
  
* USB Webcam: '''Medium'''
+
Several major phases are required to achieve this goal, but most likely only one phase is a viable target for a single summer's project.  Careful scoping is a must.
Implement a USB Webcam (video input) driver for the BeagleBoard.
 
  
* Ogg Vorbis audio xDM encode and decode codecs: '''Medium'''
+
* First phase: collect/process high quality magnetometer data. Even with a short mast, data from primary sensor is still noisy; See [http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/cubesat-instruments-to-demonstrate-nasa-firsts/ NASA cubesat article] for example solution using secondary magnetometer measurements to collect "noise" (ie, magnetic data produced by satellite electronics, etc).  Use PRUs to process data from two magnetometers.
  
* Implement NTFS and/or Mac OSX file systems: '''Medium'''
+
* Second Phase: integrate GPS/comm/camera/servos with power systems, sensors.  Can use PRU to capture/process camera data.
Read/write for SD cards and such
 
  
* Develop a ‘simple’ DSP loader Linux application that will allow user to load DSP image from ARM side: '''Medium'''
+
* Third Phase: determine minimum form-factor and perform final integration. Find the sweet spot between mass, size, and power requirements.  Build 2 (one to fly, one to test).
  
* Porting open-source codec to DSP (MadPlay, VLC, some of the mplayer codecs …: '''Medium'''
+
Notes: Relative speeds may be too much for accurate local image capture, however, a reasonable level of detection via onboard sensors, especially with a local acquisition data solution for an external platform, would still be useful.  If available, an external acquisition data source may be used for initial pointing prior to local detection.  This may allow imaging of known objects even with high relative speed.
  
* USB sniffer: '''Hard'''
+
''Goal'': create prototype code to use the AM335x PRUs to acquire/process high-resolution magnetometer and other sensor data and produce an acquisition data solution for a detected object<br>
Come up with a USB sniffer solution. Idea is that the device to be sniffed is connected to the USB host port of the beagle and the beagle itself to the original host. The beagle will pass-trhu all usb data while logging that data. This could be a great help diagnosing USB problems or reengineering USB communication to a device (by logging the behaviour of a device when connected to a PC (software solutions for that exist too (usbsnoop), but a hardware solution could also support replay etc.
+
''Existing projects'': [https://github.com/kriswiner/MPU-6050/wiki/Affordable-9-DoF-Sensor-Fusion Sensor Data Fusion], [http://wiki.thing-printer.com/index.php?title=PyPRUSS_on_BeagleBone Python PRU binding documentation]<br>
 +
''Hardware skills:'' Able to read schematics, solder and/or use a breadboard to connect components, hook up serial console<br>
 +
''Software skills:'' Ada, C, Python, other (both reading and coding).<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:''Steve Arnold<br>
  
* Touchscreen and LCD open hardware design: '''Hard'''
+
==Linux userspace support of embedded devices and interfaces in high-level languages==
BeagleBoard rev C has a new connector for attaching an LCD.  The Touchscreen and LCD open hardware design project would consist of a schematic, PCB layout, and bill of materials that can be purchased easily over the Internet.  On online PCB fab could make the PCBs cheaply.  Only a soldering iron should be needed to populate the PCB.  Once built, the user could connect the PCB to their BeagleBoard had have an LCD with touchscreen support.  This project is targeted toward those interested in hardware and shouldn't require any complex software if a well supported touch screen controller chip is selected.
+
Improving the Bonescript JavaScript library, the PyBBIO Python library, Userspace Arduino, web-based interface libraries, examples or alternatives in other languages.
  
* OpenCV DSP acceleration: '''Hard'''
+
===Implementing and testing core libraries in Userspace Arduino===
Research and implement hardware acceleration for OpenCV using the DSP on beagleboard. The DSP side needs to use xdais so other DSP programs can run at the same time.
+
Implementing and testing core libraries in Userspace Arduino, especially SPI, I2C, Wire, Serial, Servo, Stepper
  
* Power Aware Computing APIs: '''Hard'''
+
This would primarily target the Arduino Tre.
Power consumption is a major problem in mobile devices.  While there are many HW level power management features in processors such as the OMAP35x, SW lacks the ability to manipulate and control those features.  Research those power features and implement kernel APIs to allow applications to manage their power more efficiently.
 
  
* OpenGL DSP acceleration: '''Hard'''
+
===Making a stable release of Processing's serial libraries for Tre===
Research and implement OpenGL ES using the DSP on beagleboard.  The DSP side needs to use xdais so other DSP programs can run at the same time.
 
Can take a look at Vincent OpenGL ES open source implementation and add DSP to it
 
  
* Adding Sense to Beagle: '''Hard'''
+
===Making a stable release of OpenFrameworks's serial libraries for Tre===
Sensory aware applications are becoming more mainstream with the release of the Apple iPhone.  This project would combine both HW and SW to add sensory awareness to beagle.  First, additional modules such as GPS, 3-axis accelerometers, Gyroscopes, Temperature Sensors, Humidity Sensors, Pressure Sensors, etc, would be added to beagle to compliment the microphone input in order to allow sensing of the real world environment.  Then SW APIs would need to be layered on top to allow easy access to the sensory data for use by applications. 
 
  
* Smart Energy Monitoring Console: '''Hard'''
+
==Improving initial experience for novice developers==
The ZigBee Smart Energy profile is a wireless standard for utility companies and consumers to securely monitor and manage home energy consumption by communicating directly with smart appliances that report their power usageBy interfacing the Beagle Board to an MCU and RF transceiver monitoring the energy consumption of a home and it's appliances, the Beagle Board could act as a dedicated terminal to track ''and control'' energy usage of power hungry devices.
+
Improving the methods for communicating how to build projects, improving the out-of-box experience for novices and consolidating support for simplified home manufacturing (CNC, 3D printers, laser cutters, pick-and-place machines, etc.), drones/bots (ROS, IMU, video streaming, etc.) or other common tasks.
 +
=== Demo Android app using BBBAndroid ===
 +
The [http://beagleboard.org/project/bbbandroid/ BBBAndroid project] allows you to run Android on your favorite embedded Linux board. The next step for this project would be to get more people involved by showcasing some apps that can be run on Android which make use of the awesome peripherals of the BeagleBone Black : GPIOs, i2c, spi, CAN, ADC, etc<br>
 +
Exact problem definition could be defined by the student<br>
 +
A good place to start is [http://icculus.org/~hendersa/android/ this website].<br>
 +
''Goal:'' Build android app(s) that can be run using BBBAndroid.<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Basic knowledge of digital circuits.<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' Some experience with Android, C<br>
 +
''Possible Mentors:'' Andrew Henderson, Anuj Deshpande<br>
  
* Wiigle Board (low cost video game platform): '''Hard'''
+
=== NW.js (a.k.a node-webkit) based cross-platform getting-started app===
Develop an open source platform for video game development by generating the drivers to standard interfaces such as wireless accelerometers or game controllers. Off the self microcontrollers can be leverages to handle the I/O and RF interfaces, and the Beagle Board would handle all processing and display. By generating a clean, open standard, the community could port existing games or use this as their preferred platform for video game development. The concept could be extended by porting known console emulators (NES, Genesis, SNES, etc) to run classic games on a unified, low cost platform.
+
Newbies often have a difficult time following directions that could be replaced by an application. The steps to download and install an application is something that even newbies can typically manage. This avoid issues like having bad browsers or not having typical development tools like 'ssh'. This is a common problem across all embedded Linux platforms and node-webkit provides a good solution for making it cross-platform.
  
* MUSB enhancements: '''Hard'''
+
''Features'':
The MUSB block on the Beagle has a lot of potential but the driver is currently rather buggy. This project will be to fix the driver so the MUSB implementation as paired with the PHY used on the Beagle board can work reliably as a USB OTG device. This means it should be able to at least reliably go back and forth between host and device mode without a reboot by just changing from a A to a B cable AND be able to force host or device mode in software. See the Nokia N8x0 devices for a sample behavior of how software can force this. An initial estimate is code needs to be implemented to force the PHY into host or device mode as requested by SysFS.
+
* Provide instructions for getting up-and-running with the board based (incorporate the Getting Started Guide)
 +
* Automatically discover boards on the LAN using mDNS and predetermined IP addresses
 +
* Act as a browser to interact with the board, including performing SSH and SCP
 +
* Discover the latest SD card images from multiple distributions
 +
* Bootload the board with a USB-mass-storage-class application
 +
* Program SD cards through the board or a USB adapter
 +
* Program on-board eMMC
  
* Real-time audio room analyzer/equalizer: '''Hard'''
+
''Goal:'' Provide a downloadable application for Linux, Windows and Mac that enables unexperienced users to get going enough to start learning about using Linux and the embedded I/O.<br>
Implement a real-time audio room analyzer/equalizer.  Using techniques such as PN sequence “noise” correlation, analyze the acoustic characteristics of a room and adjust the multiband filter responses for the high fidelity music output, all in real-time. If the room acoustics change, even with something as transient as a person walking into the room, the filters adjust in real time to maintain the same frequency response for the specified region of the room.
+
''Existing Project:'' [http://github.com/jadonk/beaglebone-getting-started/tree/node-webkit-app Incomplete node webkit app for the BeagleBone Getting Started guide]<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' N/A<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' Able to write software in JavaScript and work with Node.js modules<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Jason Kridner, Julian Duque<br>
  
* Adjustable sweet spot for a high-end sound system: '''Hard'''
+
===BoneScript web pages with live-running examples and documentation===
Create an adjustable sweet spot for a high-end sound system. Use a sensor (thermal, webcam, whatever) to determine the placement of humans in the audience of a home theater or small concert hall. Using appropriate timing delays in all pass filters and perhaps adjusting the frequency response, provide an optimized “sweet spot” for a 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 sound system.  The program will be able to “move, ”  “grow,” or “shrink” the sweet spot area to provide the best acoustic experience for the greatest number of audience members, or as determined by some other user selectable criteria.
+
{{#ev:youtube|VP0DOheLxQA||right|5 JavaScript Tricks for BeagleBone}}
 +
The BoneScript JavaScript library enables hardware control from web pages using socket.io for remote procedure calls. This provides an excellent environment for teaching how to wire-up sensors and controls and rapidly prototype user interfaces. Numerous examples exist on the web, but consolidation and testing are required to make them usable by novices. Examples include interfacing with potentiometers, light sensors, temperature sensors, motors and LED arrays then visualizing/controlling with Twitter, Facebook, jQuery, Spacebrew and dweet,io.
  
* Inexpensive teleprompter that adapts to the speaker: '''Hard'''
+
'''This is a proposal, Jason Kridner needs to give the OK for this.''' <br>
Design a small inexpensive teleprompter that adapts to the speaker. Using an image sensor and appropriate algorithms to determine the speaker’s location and direction of gaze, use a picoprojector to project the teleprompter output on a variety of predetermined surfaces.  The surfaces could be special glass as with current teleprompters or simply a convenient wall of the room!  As the speaker moves their head or even moves around the stage or room, the teleprompter provides the projected output where needed.
+
''Goal:'' Get the source code http://diegotc.github.io/bone101/Support/GSOC/views/index.html of last year of the GSOC program and continue
 +
making changes for this new year program. One of the main objectives will be to include the Beaglebone-UI embedded on the cards.
 +
Right now you can run programs that use the bonescript library. A new function of the platform could be that it allows users
 +
to also run programs on other languages like python or ruby. Fixed some design issues with current source code and find the best way to maintained all information on gist.github.com Taking in consideration big images can't be uploaded right now.<br>
 +
''Existing Projects:'' [http://makezine.com/2014/01/14/5-easy-javascript-tricks-you-can-teach-your-beaglebone/ 5 easy tricks presentation], http://beagleboard.org/Support/BoneScript, https://github.com/jadonk/bone101, [https://github.com/jadonk/beaglebone-getting-started/blob/add-bone101/Docs/demo_bmp085.html BMP085 Bonescript example], [http://elinux.org/Category:ECE497 ECE497 examples], [http://jsfiddle.net/gh/gist/jquery/1.9.1/9602198/ JSFiddle on GIST example]<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Basic knowledge of digital circuits.<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' JavaScript and some familiarity with Linux<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Jason Kridner, Diego Turcios, Julian Duque<br>
  
* Protect the ears of concert-goers: '''Hard'''
+
===Android-based remote display===
Protect the ears of concert-goers. Design a wideband real-time beamformer that would direct less sound energy to the front rows of a concert hall or stadium and more to the back rows, to equalize the relative volume. Since beamforming algorithms are frequency (wavelength) dependent, the BeagleBoard would need to analyze the music content and adjust the beamforming parameters as needed in real-time.
+
Extend last years project with support for keyboard, mouse and sound. The project is composed of 2 subprojects: a kernel framebuffer+usb driver and a Java application. The basic video interface is in place and tested but the project lacks user input support.
  
* GPS: '''Hard'''
+
''Goal:'' Improve the existing project and add support for keyboard, mouse and sound<br>
GPS application that works with USB GPS receiver (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/USB-12-Channel-NMEA-0183-Receiver-UT-41/dp/B000G6TYC8) or http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/robotics/003/index.html
+
''Existing Project:'' [https://github.com/praveendath92/bard-droid Android application], [https://github.com/praveendath92/bard-linux Kernel framebuffer driver]<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Some knowledge of USB<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' Java, C and Android.
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Vladimir Pantelic, Jason Kridner, Vlad Ungureanu, Praveen Kumar Pendyala (last year GSoCer), Andrew Henderson
  
* Jogger’s Friend: '''Hard'''
+
Where to start? [https://github.com/praveendath92/bard-linux/blob/master/documentation/dev.md This] could be a good start.
Gather heart-rate data and GPS position information
+
 
Use it to analyse the value of exercise and to suggest different exercise patterns to optimise the benefit to each individual.
+
===Cross platform USB boot===
+
Boot (and flash) your BeagleBone (Black) and BealgeBoard X15 from a Windows, Mac or Linux computer without using a microSD card.
* HiFi Companion: '''Hard'''
+
 
Develop analysis algorithms to characterise the acoustic properties of a room, then present suggestions to optimise those characteristics to get best results from audio systems
+
Extend [https://github.com/ungureanuvladvictor/bbblfs BBB Linux flasher] to support Windows, Mac and Linux hosts. The support for the BB{B/W} is in place but needs adaptation for Windows/Mac. The BeagleBoard X15 uses another way of USB booting [http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/spruhz6/spruhz6.pdf Peripheral Booting on the X15].
 +
 
 +
The project can be extended to automatically flash a board and then start executing tests in a CI environment. Another addition can be a cross-platform UI written using QT for easier portability.
 +
 
 +
''Goal:'' Download a Linux image from the web and boot a BeagleBoard using it over USB<br>
 +
''Existing Project:'' https://github.com/ungureanuvladvictor/BeagleDroid, https://github.com/ungureanuvladvictor/BBBlfs<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Some knowledge of USB<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C, libusb and familiarity with Mac, Linux and Windows<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Vladimir Pantelic, Jason Kridner, Vlad Ungureanu<br>
 +
 
 +
===Android under Angstrom===
 +
Some people want to play Angry Birds or run other Android apps on their BeagleBoard/BeagleBone.  Of course, you could use the Rowboat Android project as-is, but then you'd have to give up all of their typical Linux/X11 applications available in Angstrom.  This project would use an Android-enabled kernel and a combination of both Angstrom and Android file systems.  The input and display methods required for Android would need to be adjusted to run in on a virtual terminal and chroot/chvt would be used to invoke the various user space windows.
 +
 
 +
This has essentially been done once as part of [https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/beagleboard/ Always Innovating's Super-Jumbo] demo running Ubuntu, Angstrom, ChromeOS and Android simultaneously. The fundamental challenge is getting it reproducible and integrated into the OpenEmbedded build system for Angstrom and then starting to minimize the wasted file space by sharing libraries. Eventually, even making Android applications run in a window is desired.
  
* Voice Scrambler: '''Hard'''
+
''Goal'': Run Android applications under Angstrom and toggle back-and-forth using CTRL-ALT-Fn key presses.<br>
Develop algorithms for real-time scrambling of voice conversations for transmission across unsedcured connections.
+
''Existing projects'': http://arowboat.org, http://www.angstrom-distribution.org<br>
+
''Hardware skills:'' Minimal<br>
* Brain Mouse: '''Hard'''
+
''Software skills:'' Able to write software in C and Java, experience with X11 and Android<br>
Interpret brain signals so that a PC cursor can be controlled by thoughts to point and click on the screen.
+
''Possible mentors:'' Hunyue Yau, Vladimir Pantelic, Andrew Henderson<br>
  
* Open Source PLC: '''Hard'''
+
===Automated testing for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black===
Imagine Beagle opening and closing curtains, rendering audio when someone enters a room, turning on a fan as the temperature rises in a trombe wall - but only if the room temperature is cool, or a million other control applications.  There are several automation standards, including [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61131 [IEC 61131]] and [http://www.automationml.org [AutomationML]].  However, there is no open source software available that implements any of these standards (puffin/MatPLC seems to have fizzled)! Create an Open Source PLC project supporting a freely accessible standard.
+
Produce code samples and test harness for use of I/O on BeagleBone to be placed in the neutral elinux.org BeagleBone community pages.
  
* One-laptop-per-child (http://laptop.org/en/ ) with Beagle: '''Hard'''
+
''Goal:'' The Beagleboard.org community has lacked a canonical source of high quality documentation on how to use peripherals found on AM335x. Peripheral use to be documented will include UARTs, I2C, SPI, PWM, ADC, USB Host/Gadget as well as advanced topics such as software development and optimization for the M3 and PRU coprocessors.<br>
 +
''Existing Project:'' [http://www.elinux.org/BeagleBone_Community elinux.org BeagleBone Community Page]<br>
 +
''Hardware Skills:'' Yes<br>
 +
''Software Skills:'' C<br>
 +
''Possible mentors:'' Hunyue Yau, Matt Porter and Jason Kridner
  
* Move Firefox to Cairo on OpenVG and minimize memory footprint
+
==Previous ideas==
* Implement OpenVG with the C64x and DMAs
+
* [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2014]]
* more codecs on the dsp (e.g. mp3 encoder/decoder, mpeg2 decoder, codecs for IP telephony (with video), ...)
+
* [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2013]]
* port LXDE (see www.lxde.org)
+
* [[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2012]]
* beagle as upnp renderer
 
* good text to speech support, xDM-based algorithm
 
* Clean MythTV, Boxee, XBMC, or Miro builds
 
* facial recognition with depth analysis using pico projector and webcam
 
* Port face-recognition and/or fingerprint recognition user app running on top of Android OS thru USB webcam
 
* high-speed 3d scanning with pico projector and webcam
 
* implementing a single pixel camera with beagleboard, pico projector and webcam; accelerate processing using DSP
 
* USB class converters (MTP to mass-storage, audio to midi, ...) or invasive sniffer
 
* Wiimote + Pico Projector + 3D art tool
 
* Extend Android with extra sensory operations (GPIO/PWM controls, temperature sensors, barometers, etc.)
 
* DSP libraries for Android (both portable C and optimized implementations with C64x+ and/or NEON)
 
* Gesture-controlled web browser
 
* Power monitoring (http://www.google.org/powermeter/smarterpower.html)
 
* Off-line Google App host on an SD card
 
* Commodore 64 emulator via S-Video and Bluetooth keyboard
 
* Printer and Scanner Drivers for Beagle
 
* JPEG2000 codec running on BeagleBoard
 
* Video extender – take in video via usb webcam, compress it using video encoder, stream it over ethernet (could be like a security camera)
 
* DVD player – hook up USB dvdrom drive and playback video and audio
 
* Receive and/or transmit IR signals (like from a remote control. Since I don’t think Beagle has an IR receiver, you’d probably need something like http://www.usbuirt.com/ (there are many others out there, too
 
* Recording/logging data coming from instrumentation (e.g. Fluke multi-meter) … even better, combine with some DSP algorithm to “crunch” the data.
 
* Telescope interface that let a telescope track items in the sky (important if you’re trying to photograph things). Something along these lines for Beagle might be neat.
 
** http://www.telescopes.com/telescope-accessories/general-accessories/meade15foot20usbcable.cfm
 
** http://www.instructables.com/id/Usb_PTZ_webcam_tracking_system/
 
* USB midi keyboard interfacing
 
* Beagle-based Linux Fileserver
 
* Beagle-based Skype phone (VOIP application that connects microphone & speaker to ethernet). Could use either USB or Audio headset/mic-speaker
 
* Solar cell powered beagle-board (hardware/software). For potential laptop/computer applications
 
* Incorporate accelerometer (SPI or I2C interface) to lay the foundation for neat motion detection apps (hardware/software)
 
* Youtube on Linux (Angstrom) on Beagleboard:
 
* ekiga Wi Fi Video Softphone:
 
(existing open source video conferencing code )that works on Linux (Angstrom) on Beagleboard Ekiga is already compiled for the arm-7 on Angstrom (http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/repo/?pkgname=ekiga). So The project would be to optimize it for the Beagle (and probably some debugging as Ekiga on beagle apparently is not that stable).
 
  
* Cellular Wireless card plug into USB on Beagleboard:
+
=Mentors=
(http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-details/?device=AT%26T+USBConnect+Quicksilver&q_sku=sku3020359
+
{| border="1"
* Windows CE 6.0R2 running on Beagleboard using armv7 (Cortex A8) instruction set===
+
! Name
* 2D Graphics acceleration using Cortex A8 Neon Coprocessor on Beagleboard===
+
! IRC nickname
* SWFDEC using Cortex A8 / Neon coprocessor for acceleration===
+
! Melange name
 +
! Native language
 +
! Other languages
 +
! Timezone
 +
! Software help
 +
! Hardware help
 +
! Focus projects
 +
|-
 +
| Jason Kridner
 +
| jkridner
 +
| beagleboard
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Eastern
 +
| JavaScript, C, u-boot
 +
| wiring, timing diagrams, basic debug
 +
| BoneScript development
 +
|-
 +
| Vladimir Pantelic
 +
| av500
 +
| vp7
 +
| German
 +
| English, Serbian
 +
| CET
 +
| Experienced on most areas of Embedded Linux, Multimedia
 +
| Schematic Review + Design
 +
| Embedded Linux, Linux Multimedia, Android
 +
|-
 +
| Vlad Ungureanu
 +
| vvu
 +
| ungureanuvladvictor
 +
| Romanian
 +
| English
 +
| GMT +2
 +
| Linux, C, Android, U-Boot, build-systems, USB
 +
| -
 +
| Cross-Platform USB Boot, Android Based Display
 +
|-
 +
| Hunyue Yau
 +
| ds2
 +
| hygsoc
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Pacific
 +
| Android, C, Linux, scripting, Kernel
 +
| Yes
 +
| -
 +
|-
 +
| Tom Rini
 +
| Tartarus
 +
| trini
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Eastern
 +
| C, u-boot, OpenEmbedded
 +
| -
 +
| U-Boot or OpenEmbedded development
 +
|-
 +
| Pantelis Antoniou
 +
| panto
 +
| panto
 +
| Greek
 +
| English
 +
| GMT+2
 +
| Linux Kernel, S/W Architecture
 +
| -
 +
| Embedded Linux architecture fixes
 +
|-
 +
| Deepak Karki
 +
| karki
 +
| karki
 +
| English
 +
| Hindi, Kannada
 +
| IST
 +
| PRU drivers, Python userspace libraries
 +
| -
 +
| PRU Bridge, PyBBIO
 +
|-
 +
| Kumar Abhishek
 +
| Abhishek_
 +
| Abhishek-Kakkar
 +
| English
 +
| Hindi
 +
| IST
 +
| PRU, Linux Kernel Programming
 +
| Yes
 +
| PRUSS Support for newer kernels
 +
|-
 +
| Alexander Hiam
 +
| alexanderhiam
 +
| alexanderhiam
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Eastern
 +
| Python, C, Linux Kernel
 +
| Prototyping, design, layout, debugging
 +
| PRU Bridge, PRUSS Support for the newer kernels
 +
|-
 +
| Samy Kamkar
 +
| samy/samy_
 +
| -
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Eastern
 +
| Python, C, Linux Kernel
 +
| Privacy and security researcher, computer hacker, whistleblower and entrepreneur
 +
| BeaglePilot
 +
|-
 +
| Joel Fernandes
 +
| joel_
 +
| joelagnel
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Central
 +
| C, Linux Kernel, Python
 +
| Processor Engineer, Embedded systems Architecture
 +
| Linux kernel improvement (perf and functionality)
 +
|-
 +
| Greg Kroah-Hartman
 +
| gregkh
 +
| gregh
 +
|-
 +
| David Scheltema
 +
| dschelt
 +
| dcschelt
 +
| English
 +
| Latin ;)
 +
| US Pacific
 +
|-
 +
| Charles Steinkuehler
 +
|
 +
| cdstienkuehler
 +
|-
 +
| Steve French
 +
| VoltVisionFrenchy
 +
| voltvisionfrenchy
 +
|-
 +
|Anuj Deshpande
 +
|anujdeshpande
 +
|anujdeshpande
 +
|English
 +
|German, Hindi
 +
|IST / GMT-530
 +
|C, Python, JS
 +
|-
 +
|Diego Turcios
 +
|DiegoTc
 +
|DiegoTc
 +
|Spanish
 +
|English
 +
|US Center
 +
|JS, Node, Javascript
 +
|
 +
|Improving initial experience for novice developers
 +
|-
 +
|Praveen Kumar Pendyala
 +
|praveendath92
 +
|praveendath92
 +
|English
 +
|Hindi, Telugu
 +
|CET / GMT +2
 +
|C, Linux Kernel, Android, Java
 +
|
 +
|Android Based Display
 +
|-
 +
|Robert Nelson
 +
|rcn-ee
 +
|
 +
|English
 +
|
 +
|US Central
 +
|C, Linux Kernel, U-Boot, Bash, Ubuntu/Debian Root File System
 +
|-
 +
| Kassandra Perch
 +
| nodebotanist
 +
| nodebotanist
 +
| English
 +
| ---
 +
| Central Standard US
 +
| Javascript (Node, client-side, Johnny-Five, NW/node-webkit), little bit of C.
 +
| Wiring, soldering
 +
| getting-started app, bonescript development
 +
|-
 +
|Andrew Henderson
 +
|hendersa
 +
|hendersa
 +
|English
 +
|
 +
|US Eastern
 +
|C, C++, ARM asm, Linux, Linux kernel, Android
 +
|Prototyping
 +
|Android, Linux multimedia
 +
|-
 +
|Julian Duque
 +
|julianduque
 +
|julianduque
 +
|Spanish
 +
|English
 +
|EST / GMT-5
 +
|JavaScript (Node.js/io.js, Frontend, Johnny-Five, NW/node-webkit), Linux
 +
|
 +
|Getting Started App, BoneScript development, Node.js/io.js update on build images
 +
|-
 +
| Steve Arnold
 +
| nerdboy / mr_science
 +
| sarnold
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Western (PST8PDT)
 +
| u-boot, kernel, Linux OS build/deploy, bash, Python, etc
 +
| basic prototyping/debugging, high-level I2C/SPI sensor interfaces
 +
| Satellites, cameras, remote sensor platforms, weather stuff
 +
|-
 +
| Víctor Mayoral
 +
| vmayoral
 +
| vmayoral
 +
| English, Spanish
 +
| -
 +
| CET
 +
| kernel, Snappy Ubuntu Core, APM, ROS
 +
| drones, copters, planes, rovers
 +
| Erle Robotics
 +
|-
 +
| Alejandro Hernández
 +
| ahcorde
 +
| ahcorde
 +
| English, Spanish
 +
| -
 +
| CET
 +
| CV, Snappy Ubuntu Core, APM, ROS
 +
| drones, copters, planes, rovers, camera design
 +
| Erle Robotics
 +
|-
 +
| Iñigo Muguruza
 +
| imuguruza
 +
| imuguruza
 +
| English, Spanish, Portuguese
 +
| -
 +
| CET
 +
| kernel, Debian, APM, ROS
 +
| drones, copters, planes, rovers, PCB design
 +
| Erle Robotics
 +
|-
 +
| Victor
 +
| calculus
 +
| calculus
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| PDT
 +
| Linux, C/C++, Java, ROS, Gentoo
 +
| sensors (SPI/I2C), microcontrollers
 +
|-
 +
| Marshall Culpepper
 +
| marshall_law
 +
| marshall_law
 +
| English
 +
| -
 +
| US Central
 +
| Linux, C/C++, FreeRTOS, Javascript, Python
 +
| Prototyping
 +
| CubeSat and HAB applications
 +
|}
 +
[[BeagleBoard/GSoC/Ideas-2012#Mentors|Previous mentors]]

Revision as of 09:51, 30 March 2015


Contents

Welcome!

BeagleBoard.org hopes to be accepted as a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code for 2015! Below, we've collected project ideas for the GSoC-2015.

Background

BeagleBoard.org is a volunteer organization that seeks to advance the state of open-source software on open-source hardware platforms capable of running high-level languages and operating systems (primarily Linux) in embedded environments. Born from taking mobile phone processors and putting them on low-cost boards to build affordable desktop computers, BeagleBoard.org has evolved to focus on the needs of the "maker" community with greater focus on the I/O needed for controlling motors and reading sensors to build things like robots, 3d printers, flying drones, in-car computer systems and much more. Past BeagleBoard.org GSoC projects included creating an interpreter for tiny CPUs, adding SPI and sensor support to Python, an HTML and git based tutorial sharing environment, porting autopilot software to Linux, an open source 100MHz 14-channel logic analyzer, using Android tablets as Linux displays, putting ADC support in Linux under the IIO framework, using Android phones as a network boot source, Running Arduino code on Linux, Robot Operating System support within the Yocto Project build system, Minix I2C support, an RPC framework for heterogeneous processor communication, a transparent USB packet sniffer, ARM optimizations for XBMC, ARM optimizations for FFTs, make-shift pulse-width-modulation and RPC optimizations for OpenCV. BeagleBoard.org has benefited from sponsorship from Texas Instruments, CircuitCo, Digi-Key, element14 and others, but avoids any dependence on that sponsorship for sustaining the effort. The project has evolved over the past few years with over 500,000 boards in circulation with developers worldwide and strong roots in the Linaro, Yocto Project, Angstrom Distribution, Debian and Linux communities---and support for running most major Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Android, Fedora, ArchLinux, Gentoo, Buildroot and many more.

BeagleBoard was inspiration for Raspberry Pi[1] and is available for about $50 through over 30 distributors world-wide (and is even available at Microcenter and Radio Shack in the USA), but is more than a throw-away computer. It is an instance of true open hardware, exposing users to the broader world of electronics, demystifying computers and fostering an environment of clones that have changed the industry for good.

Students will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of cross-compiling before being accepted, but support for demonstration is available through the IRC channel that typically has approximately 150 online chatters logged on at any time, most with sufficient experience to explain the process.

Every accepted student will be sent a BeagleBone Black before the first week of coding for testing their project.

Additional hardware will be provided depending on need and value.

For more information, check out http://beagleboard.org and http://beagleboard.org/brief.

Students looking for ideas

Student proposals can encompass projects inspired from the following list of ideas or can include personal project ideas. Previous Google Summer of Code projects show that the key to success is being passionate about your project, so propose something that is extremely interesting to you, even if it is not on this list. We will be glad to help students develop ideas into projects via the BeagleBoard GSoC IRC or the BeagleBoard-GSoC mailing list. There are many potential project ideas and we will match students to projects based on their interests and help scope the proposals to something that can be completed in the Summer of Code timeframe.

There are more than 500 existing projects listed at http://beagleboard.org/project. If you are interested in any of the projects listed on the BeagleBoard.org projects page, contact the project members to see if there are any aspects of their projects that can be enhanced to create a GSoC project. There are also several ideas on the ECE497 class project idea list. You can also check out last year's idea page.

Mentors wondering where to help

Please start by registering your ideas for student projects below by following the template provided with the existing ideas. Furthermore, scroll down to the bottom and give everyone a bit of information about your expertise and availability by adding yourself to the table. Jason will make final approvals for mentor assignments based on if we first get accepted as a mentoring organization and best matching mentor skill sets with student project ideas deemed valuable to the community.

You will also need to register on Melange and request to be a mentor for BeagleBoard.org.

General requirements

All projects have the following basic requirements:

  1. Once accepted, the project must be registered on http://beagleboard.org/project.
  2. All newly generated materials must be released under an open source license.
  3. Individual students shall retain copyright on their works.
  4. Source code generated during the project must be released on github.com (to be cloned to github.com/beagleboard on successful completion).
  5. The registration on http://beagleboard.org/project must include an RSS feed with project announcements and updates at every milestone. Sources for the RSS feed should be blogger.com, wordpress.com, or some other established blog-hosting service with known reliability.
  6. To help you to break your project down into manageable chunks and also to help the project's mentors to better support your efforts, weekly project status reports should be e-mailed to the project's mentors and the organization administrator (Jason Kridner). Each status report should outline:
    1. what was accomplished that week,
    2. any issues that prevented that week's goals from being completed and
    3. your goals for the next week.
  7. Students will provide two recorded audio/video presentations uploaded to youtube or vimeo (screencasts are appropriate), one near the beginning of the project summarizing their project goals and another in the wrap-up phase to summarize their accomplishments. Examples can be found on http://beagleboard.org/gsoc.
  8. Students will demonstrate their ability to cross-compile and utilize version control software by creating a "Hello World" application and generating a pull request to https://github.com/jadonk/gsoc-application/tree/master/ExampleEntryJasonKridner. For assistance, please visit http://beagleboard.org/chat or utilize the beagleboard-gsoc Google Group. The "Hello World" application must print your name and the date out in an ARM Linux environment. Freely available emulators may be used to test your application or you can ask anyone on the chat or mailing list to help you test.
  9. All projects will produce reusable software components and will not be "what–I-built-over-my-summer-vacation" projects. Including a hardware component is welcome, but the project *deliverable* will be software that may be utilized by a wide audience of the BeagleBoard.org community.

Ideas

Linux kernel support for embedded devices and interfaces

Improving the state of the Linux kernel, especially with regards to embedded devices and interfaces. Includes improved ARM/OMAP/Sitara platform support, simplifying the development of add-on hardware for embedded systems and exchanging hardware connectivity information with userspace.

BeaglePilot 2.0: Making underwater drones

In a nutshell, the idea is to create an underwater vehicle (submarine) for the APM autopilot using/porting the OpenROV code/infraestructure, an open hardware submarine. The APM code should be extended and create a new kind of vehicle (e.g.: APMSubmarine).

Goal: Add an underwater drone vehicle class to the APM autopilot using the OpenROV work.
Hardware Skills: PPM, PWM, PRUSS
Software Skills: C, C++, nodejs, processing
Possible Mentors: Víctor Mayoral Vilches, Alejandro Hernández Cordero, Iñigo Muguruza Goenaga
Workload: 1 student full time.
GitHub: https://github.com/beaglepilot2
References: https://github.com/OpenROV/openrov-software, https://github.com/OpenROV/openrov-software-arduino


BeagleRT: Real-Time Linux with the BeagleBone Black

Assessment of the real-time limitations and capabilities with the BeagleBone Black.

  • vanilla kernel
  • vanilla with PREEMPT option
  • PREEMPT_RT patches
  • Xenomai patches
  • PRUSS

Goal: Many applications require a certain degree of real-time response. This project will analyze, test and compare the different approaches for providing Real-Time responses with the BeagleBone Black development board.
Hardware Skills: PRU, PPM, PWM, PRUSS
Software Skills: C, C++, Python, Assembly
Possible Mentors: Steve Arnold
Workload: 1 student full time.
GitHub: https://github.com/BeagleRT/BeagleRT
References: https://www.osadl.org/fileadmin/dam/rtlws/12/Brown.pdf

Upstreaming Beagleboard.org Kernel Patches

The BeagleBone currently relies on a number of out-of-tree kernel patches in order to boot. These patches are maintained by Koen Kooi (CircuitCo) and come from many sources, including TI employees and various mailing lists. Getting more of these patches upstream would make it easier to boot a BeagleBone and also make use of a BeagleBone easier for users and kernel developers who need to track upstream kernel changes, or who otherwise need to be closer to the bleeding edge of Linux kernel development. The current patch set is maintained at github and contains scripts to easily patch an upstream kernel. The scripts in this repository are used to build the BeagleBoard.org kernels which ship with the Angstrom SD card images.

Goal: Push as many patches as possible to Linus's mainline kernel tree via the appropriate staging kernels for the subsystems involved.
Existing Project: The Mainline Linux Kernel, patches needing to be pushed
Hardware Skills: Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals.
Software Skills: Able to write software in C, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation and testing.
Possible mentors: Matt Porter, Matt Ranostay, Koen Kooi, Alan Ott

IIO debugging tools

Quick background: IIO is the new way of doing sensors but being a newer interface, it lacks tools for debugging. This project is to produce sometools to debug drivers. There are several ways this project can happen:
1. We can implement userland tools that read IIO data similar to the evtest tool.
2. We can implement a event handler for the IIO driver. This way existing tools and code can be used. There was references from another mailing list (probally LKML) talking about this.

Goal: Userspace application similar to evtest that captures debug events and instrumented IIO driver code to produce those events.
Existing Project: patched kernel with IIO driver
Hardware Skills: None.
Software Skills:C coding (1), (2) requires kernel coding
Possible mentors: Hunyue Yau

MMC and DMA Linux performance

Improving performance of MMC driver by understanding issues, improving MMC, DMA drivers and eliminating bottlenecks.

Goal: Both MMC and DMA are critical to high performance of I/O intensive workloads on a Beagleboard/ARM platform, even fast system boot up depends on it.

A good amount of performance improvement is possible just by identifying what's going on in hot paths and how things can be done more simply, without breaking anything else. Also improvements are possible using innovative techniques such as intelligent buffer allocation and reducing overhead where possible in dependent components such as DMA. Cutting the fat in hot paths is definitely a start.

Existing Project: Upstream Kernel
Hardware Skills: Yes
Software Skills: C, Possible use of JTAG, ftrace, perf etc.
Possible mentors: Joel Fernandes

Enhance ADC driver for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black

Improve the onboard ADC to support more features provided by the hardware. The hardware supports things like periodic sampling and averaging along with the ability to schedule the different channels and allow them to be configured differently.

Goal: The Beagleboard.org community lacks a common unified way of accessing the different features available on the ADC. Some of these hacks such as attempts at periodic sampling squaders hardware resources on the BeagleBone when in reality the ADC block can do it directly. The goal is to create a drive with a plan to upstream that will expose these additional features. It should try to coordinate with the current driver maintainer. The coordination and upstreaming parts needs to be weighed and considered due to the limited GSoC time frame.

Existing Project:
Hardware Skills: Yes
Software Skills: C
Possible mentors: Hunyue Yau (others welcome to volunteer)

Common bootloader for different all the BeagleBone/BeagleBoards

Create a common bootloader for all the different BeagleBone/BeagleBoards. Currently, the BBX/BBC share a common bootloader and the BBW/BBB share another one. Other boards such as the upcoming new board uses yet another. Goal: Unified as many of the different bootloaders as possible. This in particular focuses on the critical SPL (initial bootloader). The challenge will be working with the limited hardware resources and differences during the initial bootloader. This initial bootloader has to fit into internal memory, configure memory, and load u-boot. Existing Project:
Hardware Skills: Yes
Software Skills: C
Possible mentors: Hunyue Yau (others welcome to volunteer)

ARM processor support in open source operating systems and libraries

Optimizations to applications and libraries like XBMC to make them run better on resource constrained environments or to take advantage of more specialized processing elements.

Library of Arduino-compatible functions for StarterWare

This would be an implementation of Arduino utilizing the BeagleBone Black and the StarterWare O/S independent library for accessing the hardware. Without having to access the hardware through an operating system, developers will be able to fine-tune the system to achieve optimal resource management of the CPU, peripherals and memory. The project would also include basic documentation and generation of code samples for various functionality of the library, such as SPI,Serial,Ethernet for starters. This would make the project thorough and ready for use by various developers in the community.

Goal: Utilize the Energia fork of Arduino to push support for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black
Existing Project: Energia, StarterWare
Hardware Skills: Yes
Software Skills: C/C++
Possible mentors: Jason Kridner (others can be referred if there are interested students)

Heterogeneous co-processor support in open source operating systems and libraries

Enabling usage of DSPs, PRUs, FPGAs, Cortex-M3s, Arduinos, MSP430 launchpads and other attached processing platforms.

PRU Bridge

The aim of the project is to create a multi channel userspace Linux to PRU bridge (driver). Developers should be able to send and receive data seamlessly from the ARM or PRU. On the Linux side each channel will be represented by a file, and writing to a channel is a simple file write operation. Similarly if the client program on Linux want to read, it will read the file corresponding to the channel. On the PRU side, there will be a event loop listening to any events on any channels. If there is valid data on any channel, the corresponding callback is called.

Currently the widely used libprussdrv supports exporting of 'interrupts' via sysfs, but no clean way of data transfer. The PRU-bridge will be a remote proc based sysfs driver. Channels here are generic, will enable export of data and interrupts to userspace. [Each channel could carry it's own semantic meaning, completely upto the developer].

Internally the kernel driver will maintain a shared memory circular buffer for each channel, and read or write on a sysfs file will result in an "upcall-downcall" action (a method in which the kernel and PRU interact). Different channels could be specialized for different requirements (i.e. one channel could be fine tuned for block transfers, another for a stream interface).

This project will also require the student to develop a Node.js/Python based API to communicate with the PRU.
Another interesting add on would be if the driver supported dynamic pin-muxing when prompted by the PRU. (i.e. can the PRU tell the kernel to enable h/w PWM on particular pins (instead of GPIO)?)
Having a standardized driver like this will eliminate the need for writing separate drivers as in the case of applications like pruspeak.


Goal: Develop a driver to enable a robust communication channels b/w Linux userspace and PRU.
Existing project: small writeup available at pru_serial_doc and high level python API RPC example
Hardware skills: Knowledge of Linux system programming, basic understanding of Device Driver, PRU architecture.
Software skills: Good knowledge of C, working knowledge of Python/Node.js
Possible mentors: Deepak Karki, Alexander Hiam

PRUSS Support for the newer kernels

Until now, libprussdrv has been the first point of contact for a prospective user of the Programmable Real-Time Units present on the BeagleBone Black. However in GSoC 2014 the two projects targeting the PRUs - BeagleLogic and BotSpeak worked on the remoteproc framework of the Linux kernel for the PRUs which was found to give better results.

However, not everyone should need to hack the kernel and the drivers for buiding their projects and as such a proper lightweight message passing framework and firmware loading infrastructure would increase the utility of the PRUs that are on board the BeagleBone (Black).

Possible design goals of the new framework:

  • Upstreaming The idea is to have support for the PRU in the mainline kernel and not in another "vendor" kernel.
    Thus the entire framework has to be written keeping the Kernel coding guidelines so that the patch will be ready for submission to the LKML soon by the end of the coding period.
  • Simple and easy-to-use API Need to generate examples, documentation and keep the API as simple and straightforward as possible. There is no point in having yet another PRU framework if no one is using it.
  • Language-Agnostic Whether one swears by C, uses Python or is a JavaScript programmer, everyone can use the same basic API and objects to leverage the processing capabilities of the PRU.
    Alexander Hiam posts a sample gist which could be used as a starting point.
  • Lightweight The PRU is optimized for low latency memory access and I/O operations, be it toggling a GPIO, generating stepping pulses or controlling large streams of WS2812B LED strip modules or sampling GPIOs at regular intervals into RAM. Larger messages increase this overhead.
  • Support for interrupts to userspace The ability to get a callback from the PRUs to userspace or kernel space (according to need of the application). A kernel module may be able to "attach" and "detach" itself from the main pru-remoteproc driver to extend its functionality if so needed.
  • Memory Management The ability to allocate shared buffers of arbitrary size shared between the PRU and the kernel if required.

The list as such is not exhaustive and prospective students / developers are encouraged to participate and edit this section with possible suggestions to make the PRUSS programming more productive and accessible to everyone.

Goal: Create a new mainline kernel-friendly infrastructure that leverages functionality of the PRU
Existing project: BeagleLogic, PRUSpeak,
Hardware skills: Understanding of basic embedded systems.
Software skills: Able to write software in C, understand existing patches with PRU support, PRU Assembly. create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation
Possible mentors: Kumar Abhishek

PRU upstreaming

Remove HWMOD dependency requirement for PRU along with adding device tree bindings so it can be upstreamed into Linus's tree.

Goal: Push patches to Linux mainline providing support for the AM335x PRU
Existing project: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/
Hardware skills: Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals
Software skills: Able to write software in C, understand existing patches with PRU support, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation
Possible mentors: Start with Jason Kridner and Matt Porter, but we'll get some others involved

PRU firmware loader

Allow "firmware" which are really binary PRU applications to be loaded directly on PRU cores and executed using the request_firmware() functionality of the Linux Kernel. This should also be Cape Manager to load PRU cape specific applications.

Ideal workflow:

  • Cape detected that uses the PRU
    • Setup pinmux
  • Find the respective firmware file for PRU core (or both cores) /lib/firmware/cape_A020_pru0.bin
  • Load onto PRU and begin execution.

Goal: Push patches to Linux mainline providing support to loading firmware on PRU cores and executing
Existing project: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/
Hardware skills: Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals
Software skills: Able to write software in C, create patches to the Linux kernel and perform cross-compilation
Possible mentors: Matt Ranostay, Matt Porter

Program PRU using high-level scripting languages

Based on Chris Roger's BotSpeak work to provide a virtual machine for typical Arduino functions that can be accessed from LabView, build a virtual machine to enable PRU programming from Bonescript. The virtual machine is a simple interpreter that loops over the commands to perform such as delay, pinMode, analogRead, analogWrite, digitalRead and digitalWrite functions.

A basic design is elaborated upon at http://github.com/jadonk/pruduino

Goal: Implement a BotSpeak interpreter that off-loads hard real-time tasks from Bonescript onto the PRU and include that in the BoneScript project
Existing projects: PRUDUINO, http://github.com/beagleboard/am335x_pru_package, http://github.com/jadonk/bonescript, Chris' language definition
Hardware skills: Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals
Software skills: Able to write software in JavaScript and assembly
Possible mentors: Chris Rogers, Jason Kridner

Linux on C6x

Execute Linux on the C6x core on the BeagleBoard, BeagleBoard-xM and BeagleBoard-X15.

Goal: Submit patches to the mainline Linux kernel for building a suitable kernel. Existing project: http://linux-c6x.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Hardware skills: Able to read processor technical reference manual and comprehend it.
Software skills: Must be familiar with Linux bring-up.
Possible mentors: Jadon Kridner

Interesting Applications for PRU Processing

Using BeagleBone PRUs to control CNC and 3D printer stepper motor Drivers

This project is to write code for the PRU (realtime processors on the AM335x used in the Beagle Bone) so that it can generate multiple step and direction outputs based on a queue of commands in real time. This needs to be done in real time so the acceleration and coordination of multiple stepper motors can be controlled and coordinated. A step/dir signal is commonly used in a lot of stepper motor drivers. While it is possible to generate stepper phase information from the PRU, it is also undesireable from a testing stand point. An example of a reason for doing this is controlling the X/Y directions of the head of a 3D printer so that it can generate precise curves. While similar code has been done, it is not done in a real time fashion so it is difficult to add coordination between motors and/or maintain a known acceleration.

The result of this code should be something interfaceable to a control system like the non realtime portions of the Linux CNC project (formerly the EMC project). But as a demo, this same code should also demonstrate a node.js functionality such as a "G-code" interpreter. This node.js portion can be considered a second project due to the different skill sets required and ideally this project would be split between two GSoC students. One project would be working mostly on PRU assembly with integration into the Linux kernel. The other project would be working mostly on userspace JavaScript in node.js and C++ code for anything needing optimization or low-level kernel access. Mentors would heavily assist on defining the right interfaces between the two programming environments. Goal: create code to use the AM335x PRUs to generate multiple step and direction outputs for reprap and CNC applications
Existing projects: Pru Documentation, UIO Driver documentation
Hardware skills: Able to read schematics, understand basic digital logic and monitor logic-level digital signals
Software skills: Assembly and C coding. Node.js for g-code interpretation
Possible mentors:Jason Kridner, Hunyue Yau, Laine Walker-Avina

Real-time Data Acquisition and Processing

Use PRUs to process data from sensors and/or imaging devices. Deployment scenario could be solar-powered remote sensor nodes or cubesats (1-U or larger). Example applications might include:

  • Use ultasonic transducers to make a 3-axis sonic anemometer (ie, use PRUs to calculate speed-of-sound in the x-y-z directions and derive orthogonal wind components).
  • Capture and process 4 image bands simulatneously (eg, B,G,R,NIR).
  • Capture and process high-frequency sensor data, eg, geomagnitic field components

Orbital Imaging Cubesat

This is essentially a prototype project for both a skeleton software framework and sensor integration (eg, via SPI, I2C, depending on data rates, etc) to process data in real-time on PRUs. Should leverage both existing hardware projects (eg, proto-cape, other) or suitable sensor breakout board(s) and software projects (and potentially other GSoC projects) as much as possible. The ultimate goal is a small cubesat-based orbital imaging platform, one or more "U" in size (the minimum necessary), specifically collect/process high quality magnetometer data, and hopefully detect other objects, calculate an acquisition data vetcor, etc. This requires both high-res data acquisition/processing and generation of real-time pointing data (otherwise known as acquisition data) for use by onboard cameras or external systems.

Several major phases are required to achieve this goal, but most likely only one phase is a viable target for a single summer's project. Careful scoping is a must.

  • First phase: collect/process high quality magnetometer data. Even with a short mast, data from primary sensor is still noisy; See NASA cubesat article for example solution using secondary magnetometer measurements to collect "noise" (ie, magnetic data produced by satellite electronics, etc). Use PRUs to process data from two magnetometers.
  • Second Phase: integrate GPS/comm/camera/servos with power systems, sensors. Can use PRU to capture/process camera data.
  • Third Phase: determine minimum form-factor and perform final integration. Find the sweet spot between mass, size, and power requirements. Build 2 (one to fly, one to test).

Notes: Relative speeds may be too much for accurate local image capture, however, a reasonable level of detection via onboard sensors, especially with a local acquisition data solution for an external platform, would still be useful. If available, an external acquisition data source may be used for initial pointing prior to local detection. This may allow imaging of known objects even with high relative speed.

Goal: create prototype code to use the AM335x PRUs to acquire/process high-resolution magnetometer and other sensor data and produce an acquisition data solution for a detected object
Existing projects: Sensor Data Fusion, Python PRU binding documentation
Hardware skills: Able to read schematics, solder and/or use a breadboard to connect components, hook up serial console
Software skills: Ada, C, Python, other (both reading and coding).
Possible mentors:Steve Arnold

Linux userspace support of embedded devices and interfaces in high-level languages

Improving the Bonescript JavaScript library, the PyBBIO Python library, Userspace Arduino, web-based interface libraries, examples or alternatives in other languages.

Implementing and testing core libraries in Userspace Arduino

Implementing and testing core libraries in Userspace Arduino, especially SPI, I2C, Wire, Serial, Servo, Stepper

This would primarily target the Arduino Tre.

Making a stable release of Processing's serial libraries for Tre

Making a stable release of OpenFrameworks's serial libraries for Tre

Improving initial experience for novice developers

Improving the methods for communicating how to build projects, improving the out-of-box experience for novices and consolidating support for simplified home manufacturing (CNC, 3D printers, laser cutters, pick-and-place machines, etc.), drones/bots (ROS, IMU, video streaming, etc.) or other common tasks.

Demo Android app using BBBAndroid

The BBBAndroid project allows you to run Android on your favorite embedded Linux board. The next step for this project would be to get more people involved by showcasing some apps that can be run on Android which make use of the awesome peripherals of the BeagleBone Black : GPIOs, i2c, spi, CAN, ADC, etc.
Exact problem definition could be defined by the student
A good place to start is this website.
Goal: Build android app(s) that can be run using BBBAndroid.
Hardware Skills: Basic knowledge of digital circuits.
Software Skills: Some experience with Android, C
Possible Mentors: Andrew Henderson, Anuj Deshpande

NW.js (a.k.a node-webkit) based cross-platform getting-started app

Newbies often have a difficult time following directions that could be replaced by an application. The steps to download and install an application is something that even newbies can typically manage. This avoid issues like having bad browsers or not having typical development tools like 'ssh'. This is a common problem across all embedded Linux platforms and node-webkit provides a good solution for making it cross-platform.

Features:

  • Provide instructions for getting up-and-running with the board based (incorporate the Getting Started Guide)
  • Automatically discover boards on the LAN using mDNS and predetermined IP addresses
  • Act as a browser to interact with the board, including performing SSH and SCP
  • Discover the latest SD card images from multiple distributions
  • Bootload the board with a USB-mass-storage-class application
  • Program SD cards through the board or a USB adapter
  • Program on-board eMMC

Goal: Provide a downloadable application for Linux, Windows and Mac that enables unexperienced users to get going enough to start learning about using Linux and the embedded I/O.
Existing Project: Incomplete node webkit app for the BeagleBone Getting Started guide
Hardware Skills: N/A
Software Skills: Able to write software in JavaScript and work with Node.js modules
Possible mentors: Jason Kridner, Julian Duque

BoneScript web pages with live-running examples and documentation

{{#ev:youtube|VP0DOheLxQA||right|5 JavaScript Tricks for BeagleBone}} The BoneScript JavaScript library enables hardware control from web pages using socket.io for remote procedure calls. This provides an excellent environment for teaching how to wire-up sensors and controls and rapidly prototype user interfaces. Numerous examples exist on the web, but consolidation and testing are required to make them usable by novices. Examples include interfacing with potentiometers, light sensors, temperature sensors, motors and LED arrays then visualizing/controlling with Twitter, Facebook, jQuery, Spacebrew and dweet,io.

This is a proposal, Jason Kridner needs to give the OK for this.
Goal: Get the source code http://diegotc.github.io/bone101/Support/GSOC/views/index.html of last year of the GSOC program and continue making changes for this new year program. One of the main objectives will be to include the Beaglebone-UI embedded on the cards. Right now you can run programs that use the bonescript library. A new function of the platform could be that it allows users to also run programs on other languages like python or ruby. Fixed some design issues with current source code and find the best way to maintained all information on gist.github.com Taking in consideration big images can't be uploaded right now.
Existing Projects: 5 easy tricks presentation, http://beagleboard.org/Support/BoneScript, https://github.com/jadonk/bone101, BMP085 Bonescript example, ECE497 examples, JSFiddle on GIST example
Hardware Skills: Basic knowledge of digital circuits.
Software Skills: JavaScript and some familiarity with Linux
Possible mentors: Jason Kridner, Diego Turcios, Julian Duque

Android-based remote display

Extend last years project with support for keyboard, mouse and sound. The project is composed of 2 subprojects: a kernel framebuffer+usb driver and a Java application. The basic video interface is in place and tested but the project lacks user input support.

Goal: Improve the existing project and add support for keyboard, mouse and sound
Existing Project: Android application, Kernel framebuffer driver
Hardware Skills: Some knowledge of USB
Software Skills: Java, C and Android. Possible mentors: Vladimir Pantelic, Jason Kridner, Vlad Ungureanu, Praveen Kumar Pendyala (last year GSoCer), Andrew Henderson

Where to start? This could be a good start.

Cross platform USB boot

Boot (and flash) your BeagleBone (Black) and BealgeBoard X15 from a Windows, Mac or Linux computer without using a microSD card.

Extend BBB Linux flasher to support Windows, Mac and Linux hosts. The support for the BB{B/W} is in place but needs adaptation for Windows/Mac. The BeagleBoard X15 uses another way of USB booting Peripheral Booting on the X15.

The project can be extended to automatically flash a board and then start executing tests in a CI environment. Another addition can be a cross-platform UI written using QT for easier portability.

Goal: Download a Linux image from the web and boot a BeagleBoard using it over USB
Existing Project: https://github.com/ungureanuvladvictor/BeagleDroid, https://github.com/ungureanuvladvictor/BBBlfs
Hardware Skills: Some knowledge of USB
Software Skills: C, libusb and familiarity with Mac, Linux and Windows
Possible mentors: Vladimir Pantelic, Jason Kridner, Vlad Ungureanu

Android under Angstrom

Some people want to play Angry Birds or run other Android apps on their BeagleBoard/BeagleBone. Of course, you could use the Rowboat Android project as-is, but then you'd have to give up all of their typical Linux/X11 applications available in Angstrom. This project would use an Android-enabled kernel and a combination of both Angstrom and Android file systems. The input and display methods required for Android would need to be adjusted to run in on a virtual terminal and chroot/chvt would be used to invoke the various user space windows.

This has essentially been done once as part of Always Innovating's Super-Jumbo demo running Ubuntu, Angstrom, ChromeOS and Android simultaneously. The fundamental challenge is getting it reproducible and integrated into the OpenEmbedded build system for Angstrom and then starting to minimize the wasted file space by sharing libraries. Eventually, even making Android applications run in a window is desired.

Goal: Run Android applications under Angstrom and toggle back-and-forth using CTRL-ALT-Fn key presses.
Existing projects: http://arowboat.org, http://www.angstrom-distribution.org
Hardware skills: Minimal
Software skills: Able to write software in C and Java, experience with X11 and Android
Possible mentors: Hunyue Yau, Vladimir Pantelic, Andrew Henderson

Automated testing for BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black

Produce code samples and test harness for use of I/O on BeagleBone to be placed in the neutral elinux.org BeagleBone community pages.

Goal: The Beagleboard.org community has lacked a canonical source of high quality documentation on how to use peripherals found on AM335x. Peripheral use to be documented will include UARTs, I2C, SPI, PWM, ADC, USB Host/Gadget as well as advanced topics such as software development and optimization for the M3 and PRU coprocessors.
Existing Project: elinux.org BeagleBone Community Page
Hardware Skills: Yes
Software Skills: C
Possible mentors: Hunyue Yau, Matt Porter and Jason Kridner

Previous ideas

Mentors

Name IRC nickname Melange name Native language Other languages Timezone Software help Hardware help Focus projects
Jason Kridner jkridner beagleboard English - US Eastern JavaScript, C, u-boot wiring, timing diagrams, basic debug BoneScript development
Vladimir Pantelic av500 vp7 German English, Serbian CET Experienced on most areas of Embedded Linux, Multimedia Schematic Review + Design Embedded Linux, Linux Multimedia, Android
Vlad Ungureanu vvu ungureanuvladvictor Romanian English GMT +2 Linux, C, Android, U-Boot, build-systems, USB - Cross-Platform USB Boot, Android Based Display
Hunyue Yau ds2 hygsoc English - US Pacific Android, C, Linux, scripting, Kernel Yes -
Tom Rini Tartarus trini English - US Eastern C, u-boot, OpenEmbedded - U-Boot or OpenEmbedded development
Pantelis Antoniou panto panto Greek English GMT+2 Linux Kernel, S/W Architecture - Embedded Linux architecture fixes
Deepak Karki karki karki English Hindi, Kannada IST PRU drivers, Python userspace libraries - PRU Bridge, PyBBIO
Kumar Abhishek Abhishek_ Abhishek-Kakkar English Hindi IST PRU, Linux Kernel Programming Yes PRUSS Support for newer kernels
Alexander Hiam alexanderhiam alexanderhiam English - US Eastern Python, C, Linux Kernel Prototyping, design, layout, debugging PRU Bridge, PRUSS Support for the newer kernels
Samy Kamkar samy/samy_ - English - US Eastern Python, C, Linux Kernel Privacy and security researcher, computer hacker, whistleblower and entrepreneur BeaglePilot
Joel Fernandes joel_ joelagnel English - US Central C, Linux Kernel, Python Processor Engineer, Embedded systems Architecture Linux kernel improvement (perf and functionality)
Greg Kroah-Hartman gregkh gregh
David Scheltema dschelt dcschelt English Latin ;) US Pacific
Charles Steinkuehler cdstienkuehler
Steve French VoltVisionFrenchy voltvisionfrenchy
Anuj Deshpande anujdeshpande anujdeshpande English German, Hindi IST / GMT-530 C, Python, JS
Diego Turcios DiegoTc DiegoTc Spanish English US Center JS, Node, Javascript Improving initial experience for novice developers
Praveen Kumar Pendyala praveendath92 praveendath92 English Hindi, Telugu CET / GMT +2 C, Linux Kernel, Android, Java Android Based Display
Robert Nelson rcn-ee English US Central C, Linux Kernel, U-Boot, Bash, Ubuntu/Debian Root File System
Kassandra Perch nodebotanist nodebotanist English --- Central Standard US Javascript (Node, client-side, Johnny-Five, NW/node-webkit), little bit of C. Wiring, soldering getting-started app, bonescript development
Andrew Henderson hendersa hendersa English US Eastern C, C++, ARM asm, Linux, Linux kernel, Android Prototyping Android, Linux multimedia
Julian Duque julianduque julianduque Spanish English EST / GMT-5 JavaScript (Node.js/io.js, Frontend, Johnny-Five, NW/node-webkit), Linux Getting Started App, BoneScript development, Node.js/io.js update on build images
Steve Arnold nerdboy / mr_science sarnold English - US Western (PST8PDT) u-boot, kernel, Linux OS build/deploy, bash, Python, etc basic prototyping/debugging, high-level I2C/SPI sensor interfaces Satellites, cameras, remote sensor platforms, weather stuff
Víctor Mayoral vmayoral vmayoral English, Spanish - CET kernel, Snappy Ubuntu Core, APM, ROS drones, copters, planes, rovers Erle Robotics
Alejandro Hernández ahcorde ahcorde English, Spanish - CET CV, Snappy Ubuntu Core, APM, ROS drones, copters, planes, rovers, camera design Erle Robotics
Iñigo Muguruza imuguruza imuguruza English, Spanish, Portuguese - CET kernel, Debian, APM, ROS drones, copters, planes, rovers, PCB design Erle Robotics
Victor calculus calculus English - PDT Linux, C/C++, Java, ROS, Gentoo sensors (SPI/I2C), microcontrollers
Marshall Culpepper marshall_law marshall_law English - US Central Linux, C/C++, FreeRTOS, Javascript, Python Prototyping CubeSat and HAB applications

Previous mentors