Assertion based debugging and monitoring of distributed systems

This thesis presents the steps taken in the design of a portable sleep study system. The kit enables a wireless sleep study of patients at hospitals and also covers the design issues involved for creating a PCB for the same. The intended users are researchers and students interested in a flexible and robust platform for sleep studies. A novel method to increase the monitoring and debug capabilities of wireless sensor systems is also addressed. This thesis proposes the use of assertion based methodologies for the robust, flexible design of such embedded systems that can be used to increase the debug ability of these remote systems. The assertion based debug methodology has also been used in Network-on-a-chip to increase the visibility and error tolerance of these systems.