How to set development host PC's USB com port as an Android Virtual Device's USB port?

Issue

I'm a newbie to the Android development world but have some experience with embedded systems.

I'd like to use an Android phone (4.x or higher) to control other devices via its USB port. We want to set the Android device as a USB host, so solutions where other devices play the host role (e.g. Android Open Accessory Development Kit's Arduino) will not meet our goal.

We are currently using Eclipse-SDK for Android development and successfully have compiled/run/debug several apps. However, I have a very naive question. I was wondering if there is a way one could use the USB port of the development host PC as an input to the Android Virtual Device emulator.

I realize that an easier way to debug the USB-host apps we are writing would be by having a real device. However, the price of the new Ice Cream Sandwich devices is somehow far away from our reach and not the ideal way for debugging an application at its early stages.

I appreciate any help you can provide me with.

Solution

The Android Open Accessory Dev kit has been backported to 2.3.4 see here http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html

So install CM7 or earlier (http://www.cyanogenmod.com/) on your HTC desire and you should be good to go!

Look at the example projects for the 2.3 SDK should help get you going in the right direction.

Path to SDK Samples for me was C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\samples

If your looking for USB Host Support basically control and talk to another usb device such as mouse, keyboard, usb thumb drive etc the following should help.

Nexus One as USB Host: http://sven.killig.de/android/N1/2.2/usb_host/

USB Host: External USB devices to Android phones?

Official Android SKD UsbDevice Class: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/usb/UsbDevice.html

Answered By - bigamil