Crash Course on Embedded C Programming

Overview

This course features Coursera Coach! A smarter way to learn with interactive, real-time conversations that help you test your knowledge, challenge assumptions, and deepen your understanding as you progress through the course. In this comprehensive course, you will dive into the essentials of C programming, specifically designed for embedded systems. Starting with installation and basic C programming syntax, you will quickly move on to explore data types, conditional statements, loops, and array manipulation. By the end of the course, you will have a strong foundation in C programming, specifically for embedded applications, enabling you to build and run your own C-based projects. As the course progresses, you will master using conditionals like if, else, and switch-case for decision making, and loops like for, while, and do-while for efficient execution. You’ll gain hands-on experience with arrays and character arrays, learning how to process input, store values, and implement sorting algorithms. Through practical assignments, you'll reinforce your knowledge by writing C programs for common embedded applications. This course is ideal for beginners who want to get started with embedded systems programming using C. No prior programming experience is required, though basic computer skills will be helpful. By the end of the course, you’ll be comfortable writing basic embedded C programs and applying them to simple hardware systems.

Syllabus

Getting Started with C

In this module, we will guide you through installing the necessary tools to begin programming in C. We will introduce you to writing your first C program, handling user inputs, and performing basic arithmetic. You'll also explore the foundational data types used in embedded C and their significance in operations.

Conditional Executions and Loops

In this module, we will delve into decision-making and repetition in C programming. You'll learn how to control the flow of your programs using if conditions, switch-case, and different types of loops. By the end, you will be equipped to solve complex problems using these tools.

Arrays in C

In this module, we will explore arrays and how they are utilized in C for storing and manipulating large sets of data. You'll learn to handle both numerical arrays and character arrays (strings), and practice array operations such as sorting and searching. We'll also introduce string formatting techniques essential for embedded systems.

Pointers and Functions

In this module, we will guide you through the powerful concepts of pointers and functions in C programming. You will learn to manipulate memory directly with pointers, and optimize your code by creating reusable functions. Additionally, we will cover advanced topics like passing arrays and strings to functions, and returning values using pointers.