Improvement of small satellite’s software design with build system and continuous integration tools

Abstract

The space exploration is a field that requires the interconnection of different research disciplines including medicine, biology, physics and of course electronics and embedded systems. Because of this integration of different disciplines, the development of software for this system can become a challenge. Because of this, it is important to have a common way to introduce pieces of software without alter or risk the deployment of the whole system. This work is focus on the design, development, and result data recollection of a deployment system of software focus on the space exploration field. It implement the Yocto project as its main construction system, by which the user can include and/or customize different pieces of software reducing the dependencies between different modules. It is also part of this work, the implementation of a continuous integration system (CI), in charge of reviewing and reporting the status of the final deployed image. This CI system also recollects important information about the construction of the deployed image as well as its stability during the project development. Results of the deployed images were tested on different development platforms.