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An embedded lightweight GUI component library and ergonomics optimization method for industry process monitoring

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Abstract

Developing an efficient and robust lightweight graphic user interface (GUI) for industry process monitoring is always a challenging task. Current implementation methods for embedded GUI are with the matters of real-time processing and ergonomics performance. To address the issue, an embedded lightweight GUI component library design method based on quasar technology embedded (Qt/E) is proposed. First, an entity-relationship (E-R) model for the GUI library is developed to define the functional framework and data coupling relations. Second, a cross-compilation environment is constructed, and the Qt/E shared library files are tailored to satisfy the requirements of embedded target systems. Third, by using the signal-slot communication interfaces, a message mapping mechanism that does not require a call-back pointer is developed, and the context switching performance is improved. According to the multi-thread method, the parallel task processing capabilities for data collection, calculation, and display are enhanced, and the real-time performance and robustness are guaranteed. Finally, the human-computer interaction process is optimized by a scrolling page method, and the ergonomics performance is verified by the industrial psychology methods. Two numerical cases and five industrial experiments show that the proposed method can increase real-time read-write correction ratios by more than 26% and 29%, compared with Windows-CE-GUI and Android-GUI, respectively. The component library can be tailored to 900 KB and supports 12 hardware platforms. The average session switch time can be controlled within 0.6 s and six key indexes for ergonomics are verified by different industrial applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310032, China

    Da-peng Tan, Guan-jun Bao & Li-bin Zhang

  2. Department of Basic Medicine, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, 310053, China

    Shu-ting Chen

Authors
  1. Da-peng Tan
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  2. Shu-ting Chen
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  3. Guan-jun Bao
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  4. Li-bin Zhang
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Correspondence to Shu-ting Chen.

Additional information

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51775501, 51375446, U1509212, and 51405441), the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (No. LR16E050001), and the Zhejiang Provincial Health Department Program, China (No. 2015KYA067)

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Tan, Dp., Chen, St., Bao, Gj. et al. An embedded lightweight GUI component library and ergonomics optimization method for industry process monitoring. Frontiers Inf Technol Electronic Eng 19, 604–625 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1601660

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