Article

Received 19.02.2025

Revised 25.05.2025

Accepted 20.06.2025

Retrieved from Vol. 28, No. 1, 2025

Pages 8 -21

Dashdamirli, N. (2025). Cross-platform development for microcontrollers: Design of a virtual machine based portable programming language. The National Transport University Bulletin: A Scientific and Technical Journal, 28(1), 8-21. https://doi.org/10.32703/2617-9040-2025-45-1

Cross-platform development for microcontrollers: Design of a virtual machine based portable programming language

Nuru Dashdamirli

The  fundamental  role  of  microcontrollers  in  embedded  systems  and  the  Internet  of  Things  (IoT) environments   necessitates   efficient   software   development   approaches.   Resource   limitations   of microcontrollers,   the   complexity   of   low-level   programming   languages,   and   the   challenges   of implementing multitasking slow down the development process considerably. Additionally, the diversity of the microcontroller landscape creates substantial barriers to code portability, leading to increased development time to support different hardware platforms. This paper presents the design of a virtual machine-based programming approach to enable cross-platform development for microcontrollers. The proposed  portable  programming  language integrates with  a  custom  virtual  machine,  Mico8-Chip,  to suit  modern  microcontroller  applications.  This  allows  intuitive  control  over  peripherals  and  built-in support for concurrent execution. The provided abstraction layer significantly improves code portability and  accelerates  development  by  isolating  application logic  from  underlying  hardware  specifics. The primary purpose of this work is to address the fragmented microcontroller ecosystem and the challenges of low-level programming by introducing a unified and portable development solution

microcontroller; embedded systems,; virtual machine; programming; bytecode; concurrency; Internet of Things
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https://doi.org/10.32703/2617-9040-2025-45-1