Android in industrial embedded environment

Question

what do you think about using android in an industrial embedded environment?

I'm thinking, for example, about a vending machine with a touch screen monitor. I can think about many advantages:

• It would increase the ease of making an advanced user interface
• Android provides tuned libraries to handle task like low power internet connection or encrypted connections
• Thanks to dalvik VM, it is easier to run on different HW platform (Arm9 - Arm11 - ....)

but there are also some cons like:

• Android is not thought for a mission critical environment (like a device handling money)... at least not to some extent.
• If not kept up to date, the software may have some bugs that compromise safety. Issue is worsen by widespread adoption.
• Someone might regard Android as resource hungry compared to a real time implementation of linux, with code written in C rather than java.

On the internet you can find some resource on the subject, but most is out of date:

http://www.hsc.com/Portals/0/Uploads/Articles/Android-Porting-on-Embedded-Platform_v2_0633850602027036930.pdf

http://www.androidforembedded.com/whitepaper/android-for-embedded.pdf

anyone has direct experience on the matter or can link me to some resource? What do you think about it guys?

Cheers,

Answer 1

I know of a Swiss company - Noser Engineering AG, which provides development of Android Software for embedded devices. Also check-out their showcase android to market

Answer 2

Android can definitely be used in a non-cell phone device. There will be pros and cons that you can find all around the web, which could be discussed during weeks. On our side, we have been playing with Android for a while now (from the port of the OS on custom ARM board to app dev) and we see real interest from customers. Regarding reliability, as in any embedded device, it is important to validate it by yourself against the use cases that your system will have to deal with. Eventually, if cons make you decide not to move to Android, you can have other ways to develop interesting HMI such as QT which runs efficiently great HMIs.

Anyway, you can check out our website (http://www.adeneo-embedded.com) and contact us if you need some help.