DriverGen: Automating the Generation of Serial Device Drivers

Microprocessors operate most serial devices in the same way, issuing commands and parsing corresponding responses. Writing the device drivers for these peripherals is a repetitive task. Moreover, measuring the response time of each command can be time-consuming and error prone. In this paper, we present DriverGen, a configuration-based tool developed to provide accurate response time measurement and automated serial device driver generation. DriverGen (i) simulates the command execution sequence of a microprocessor using a Java program running on a desktop, (ii) measures the response time of the target device to each command, and (iii) generates a device driver based on the received responses and measured response times. To evaluate DriverGen, three case studies are considered.