Although originally designed for mobile handsets, the Android™ operating system offers designers of embedded applications the ability to easily add a high-level OS to their product. Developed in association with Google, Android delivers a complete operating system that is ready for integration and production today.

 

Details on using the Texas Instruments BeagleBoard to build Applications (Apps) for smartphones and tablet PCs running the Android operating were published in Elektor’s June 2011 edition.

TI’s newest Android Development Kit from is a complete software offering to allow DM37x developers the ability to easily and quickly evaluate the Android OS. The kit provides a stable and fully tested software foundation that can be utilized on DM37x hardware including Evaluation Modules and Beagleboard (beagleboard.org).

 

The following functionalities are included: WLAN, Bluetooth , S-video , Fastboot , Power Management , NAND UBIFS , Camera on BeagleXM , MPEG4/H.264 720P video decoding.

 

The development kits include:

  • Linux Kernel

  • Uboot/x-loader

  • 3D Graphics Open GL Driver & Libraries

  • Adobe Flash 10 libraries for Android

  • RowboPERF, performance benchmarking application

  • Example Applications including 3D Graphics

  • Host Tools

  • Debugging options

  • Complete documentation

 

With the inclusion of Open GL support, users will be able to accelerate the graphics functions included in Android for a smooth and robust user experience. While supporting DM37x devices, developers can also take advantage of ARM Cortex-A8 cores up to 1GHz and numerous peripherals to fit most embedded applications.

 

The Android Development Kit for DM37x devices is provided free of charge with no development or production restrictions. Developers who would like to experiment with the latest Android code for DM37x platform can also visit the open source community at arowboat.org. There, users can download the latest code as well as interact with other developers and users of the Android operating system.