Embedded System
What's an embedded system?
It's basically a computer system designed to perform a dedicated task rather than being general purpose.
So there's a computer embedded in it. But why do we even need a CPU in the first place? It may be possible to build a functionally equivalent device with a circuit.
However, the processor and software combination offers more flexibility than a hardwired design. It is generally much easier, cheaper, and less power intensive to use.
Some Products
Motorized climbing brush with a button to see the battery level, turn on/off, change motor speed.
A weather balloon company that collect significant amount of data compared to traditional weather balloons by staying in the air for weeks. Government, defence and other firms use their data.
Robo taxi that can carry 2-4 peoples. Zoox is live in Las Vegas and San Francisco currently. They're expanding their service to Austin and Miami.
Hopcopter they call it, basically a jumping drone equipped with an elastic leg. They claim hopping is one of nature's most efficient ways of moving. Hopcopter can be used for human-friendly environments to complex terrains.
embedded systems as a career
I can keep talk about such systems like earbuds, coffee machines, cameras, medical devices, etc. You can see that we're surrounded by embedded systems in our day to day life.
If you are aiming a career in this field, you can see how cool is to work with such systems use rather than abstract concepts like wep/mobile apps.
Embedded systems is a broad field. From designing ICs, FPGAs, PCBs, firmware, operating systems, control systems, IoT, computer vision, edge-AI and many more.
I am focusing firmware engineering side of embedded. Here are some resources I found useful in my learning journey.