The current state is that there is no real current state of programming on those devices. In the real embedded device field (things that need to be cheap but still need to fulfill mission critical tasks with more or less realtime requirements) you have choices between lots of CPU architectures, dozens of realtime OSes or directly going the bare metal route and you will mostly develop in C (or maybe a subset of C++ - I guess most embedded compilers are still not up to C++11).
Depending on your safety and realtime requirements you might be very restricted on component choice as well as coding style. E.g. for a deterministic system no heap allocations might be allowed. I guess that should be the case for most medial devices.
However your project sounds more like an embedded device in the sense of "user can't modify it", but it is still running some PC/Smartphone like applications. For that kind of stuff Android and Linux are often seen (in order from most-consumer like to most realtime capable). You get the benefit of being able to reuse standard drivers, frameworks and applications but being able to guarantee that it will always work is basically impossible.
Many devices therefore also use a multi-cpu architecture, where the criticial stuff is running on a microcontroller with RTOS and the fancy UI is running on a speedier SOC with a normal OS.
QNX and GreenHills Integrity are somewhere in the middle, by providing a realtime OS which still incorporates some consumer features and are often chosen if a realtime device should directly draw UI.
You should checkout the detailed requirements for your projects and what would be possible and accepted. I guess medical has some quite strong regulations for certifications. And I'm sure using normal consumer chips (no extended temperature range, no certificated manufacturing process, ...) will always be not possible.
Comments
The current state is that there is no real current state of programming on those devices. In the real embedded device field (things that need to be cheap but still need to fulfill mission critical tasks with more or less realtime requirements) you have choices between lots of CPU architectures, dozens of realtime OSes or directly going the bare metal route and you will mostly develop in C (or maybe a subset of C++ - I guess most embedded compilers are still not up to C++11).
Depending on your safety and realtime requirements you might be very restricted on component choice as well as coding style. E.g. for a deterministic system no heap allocations might be allowed. I guess that should be the case for most medial devices.
However your project sounds more like an embedded device in the sense of "user can't modify it", but it is still running some PC/Smartphone like applications. For that kind of stuff Android and Linux are often seen (in order from most-consumer like to most realtime capable). You get the benefit of being able to reuse standard drivers, frameworks and applications but being able to guarantee that it will always work is basically impossible.
Many devices therefore also use a multi-cpu architecture, where the criticial stuff is running on a microcontroller with RTOS and the fancy UI is running on a speedier SOC with a normal OS.
QNX and GreenHills Integrity are somewhere in the middle, by providing a realtime OS which still incorporates some consumer features and are often chosen if a realtime device should directly draw UI.
You should checkout the detailed requirements for your projects and what would be possible and accepted. I guess medical has some quite strong regulations for certifications. And I'm sure using normal consumer chips (no extended temperature range, no certificated manufacturing process, ...) will always be not possible.
Yes, that's what I suspected but I feel there _should_ be some advices/best practices.
I wonder if there are any industry-focused resources (meetups, mailing lists, etc.) available, to offer specific guidance.