Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers

Carlos Rojas Castillo; Matteo Marra; Elisa Gonzalez Boix

doi:10.1145/3678720.3685317

Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers

Carlos Rojas Castillo, Matteo Marra, Elisa Gonzalez Boix

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper

Abstract

With the advent of WebAssembly (Wasm), programming microcontrollers (MCUs) has become possible by leveraging on a wide range of languages (e.g., Rust, AssemblyScript, C, C#, Go, C++) that compile to Wasm. However, current WebAssembly debugging support is still in early development and is designed for applications running on desktop machines, making it too resource-intensive for MCUs. While DWARF and OpenOCD have facilitated language-agnsotic debugging for languages like Rust, Go, and C, these solutions are limited to languages that compile to native machine code and fail to target IoT systems. Consequently, IoT systems often undergo only partial debugging, increasing the likelihood of severe and frequent concurrency and communication bugs. In this position paper, we explore the challenges and issues associated with language-agnostic debugging. We identify several key requirements for effective language-agnostic debugging, such as the need for over-the-air debugging and the ability to perform distributed debugging operations. Additionally, we present an envisioned language-agnostic debugging approach based on WebAssembly, designed to support the debugging of large-scale distributed IoT systems.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques
Editors	Elisa Gonzalez Boix, Christophe Scholliers
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	22-27
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-4007-1110-7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3678720.3685317
Publication status	Published - 13 Sept 2024
Event	Future Debugging Techniques - Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria Duration: 19 Sept 2024 → 19 Sept 2024 https://conf.researchr.org/home/issta-ecoop-2024/debt-2024

Publication series

Name	DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024

Workshop

Workshop	Future Debugging Techniques
Abbreviated title	DEBT
Country/Territory	Austria
City	Vienna
Period	19/09/24 → 19/09/24
Internet address	https://conf.researchr.org/home/issta-ecoop-2024/debt-2024

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are very grateful for the financial support provided by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen - that helped finance PhD-SB fellow Carlos Rojas Castillo Project number: 1SHEU24N.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.

Keywords

MCU
IoT
VM
WebAssembly
embedded devices

Access to Document

10.1145/3678720.3685317

https://soft.vub.ac.be/Publications/2024/vub-tr-soft-24-09.pdf

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Cite this

Rojas Castillo, C., Marra, M., & Gonzalez Boix, E. (2024). Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers. In E. G. Boix, & C. Scholliers (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques (pp. 22-27). Article 3 (DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3678720.3685317

Rojas Castillo, Carlos ; Marra, Matteo ; Gonzalez Boix, Elisa. / Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques. editor / Elisa Gonzalez Boix ; Christophe Scholliers. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2024. pp. 22-27 (DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024).

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Rojas Castillo, C, Marra, M & Gonzalez Boix, E 2024, Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers. in EG Boix & C Scholliers (eds), Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques., 3, DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), pp. 22-27, Future Debugging Techniques, Vienna, Austria, 19/09/24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3678720.3685317

Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers. / Rojas Castillo, Carlos; Marra, Matteo; Gonzalez Boix, Elisa.
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques. ed. / Elisa Gonzalez Boix; Christophe Scholliers. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2024. p. 22-27 3 (DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper

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N1 - Funding Information: We are very grateful for the financial support provided by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen - that helped finance PhD-SB fellow Carlos Rojas Castillo Project number: 1SHEU24N. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.

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Rojas Castillo C, Marra M, Gonzalez Boix E. Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers. In Boix EG, Scholliers C, editors, Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2024. p. 22-27. 3. (DEBT 2024 - Proceedings of the 2nd ACM International Workshop on Future Debugging Techniques, Co-located with: ISSTA 2024). doi: 10.1145/3678720.3685317

Language-Agnostic Debugging for Microcontrollers

Abstract

Publication series

Workshop

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

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