Embedded Internet

How about a home environmental control system? This is a project in progress, the top table of links aren't fleshed out yet but the bottom group do work on the embedded 8051.

Other Embedded Ethernet projects might be:

- Security System

- Landscape Controller

- Solar water heater

- Off-line refrigeration for environmental control

- Home defense system

- Entertainment system

And a _lot_ more. I don't see the utility in putting a refrigerator online but someone has already done that but when targeted applications can be put online for cheap your imagination is the limit.

-- Regards, Albert

---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts

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Can't help but to notice the good responses he's getting by being upfront about this being school-related as opposed to the the ones posting poorly-disguised homework questions.

How about an on-line refrigerator with an optical beer-counter inside? With a web-enabled cellphone you could easily decide the correct amount to purchase while standing in the grocery store.

Casey

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Why not utilise GPRS and have the controller send the info via email, ftp, etc by itself to some server on the internet.

How about a device that will let me program my VCR from work: Display a web page displaying the 'remote' buttons. Button presses send an IR signal to the VCR. After each button press, display a captured screen of the vcr video output.

For extra credit, have it answer the phone, and on receipt of a DTMF password, power up the computer/router for the poor suckers who are still on dialup [they will need ethernet + dial-on demand + dyndns].

station

Hi,

The first time I'v heard about this kind of application, it was 6 years ago (1998) : the purpose of this system was to keep a close eye on a river and prevent inundations. The system was powered by a solar panel and NiCd cells. At this time, it use to work whit a GSM-Data phone (GPRS didn't exist). So, this project, if not really original, is a good (and usefull) embedded project.

You should keep in mind that "embedded" doesn't mean it must be "self-powered" nor "handled" : It can be a realtime system, like a thermal regulation for a house...

a weather station is not realtime time at all : even a PC running Win95 can do it !

Regards Emmanuel

WARM Greetings Everyone!

Thank you very much for the fantastic suggestions. While it will take me some time to think about all the responses, I'm sure any one will serve the purpose more than well. I guess students of my generation are lucky that we have the internet and all the good people answering questions.

Once again thank you all.

So far I've designed a control system that uses a weighing machine (in a rather crude way; i didnt design it myself, just ripped its' output) to keep track of the components in a storage shed. Assuming all the components weigh the same, it should be easy to calculate the no. of components leaving the shed. So once the weighing machine registers the weight, the microcontroller sends an email (through a PC; dont have time or know-how to design a TCP/IP stack) stating the no. of components that left the shed. Well, rather unimpressive, considering its an open loop control system and not very useful. I have to physically place 30 pins or whatever on the scale to get the system going. Moreover the prof wants a better RTOS. I still have about 2 months to finish it. I'll work on the replies.

Regards, Devyn

Big difference between asking for ideas vs what's_the_answer eh?

Awesome suggestion! I hope he posts the website so I can buy one when complete.

Regards, Ray

...

This is because he is not asking someone to design it for him. He is just asking for a good application. Key to succeeding is here to limit the size of the application. Most people I talk to that want to do Telematics are looking for 2 MB of Flash. I'd hate to write 2 MB of code for a students project.

True, which makes it interesting to discuss and play around with.

Me too. It would be even worse if all of it had to work.

Casey

You may consider Hitachi processors. Very powerfull devices, and lot of tools.

An example at:

Cheers,

Gerard Zagema

Sorry, but that's one of the most uninformative web sites I've seen in some time. Might want to finish it some of it first before giving the URL out.

Casey

Yet another person learns how to hang a Realtek ethernet chip on a cheap processor and port a open-source stack to it...

Well, to give him credit, at least he accomplished something. That was an invaluable lesson, if he understood the source code. I'm sure his next version will have significant improvements.

My problem with the Realtek parts is that they require most/all of the pins available on an embedded microcontroller and mos/all of the cpu resources. This is why we went with the WC3100 and Cygnal, most of the i/o and cpu is still available for applications. Just serving webpages doesn't do us much good unless the 'server' can do something of value like turn a lamp or toaster on/off at least.

-- Regards, Albert

---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, StackTos is not an open project but it is our own OS. It is working now for several years in some hostile environments.

But I know, it's always easier to criticize then to give some constructive information.

To hang an Ethernet controller on a cheap processor that is what this discussion is about, if I'm right, so I don't understand the insinuations....or is it a compliment? In that case......Thanks.

Gerard Zagema

Well, you can memory map the Realtek so it will cost you one additional line (CS). You also can use the READYIO and connect it to the wait pin (another line). It's possible to use the DTC (data transfer controller) to retrieve the data from the RealTek in background.

All the other pin's and ports are for the fun of the user so you can switch/control more then you probably ever need for an embedded project like this. The modules like ST2011 are used quite a lot now for ModBUS interfaces and GUI's for PLC's. You don't need any more pins then the RS485.

But we have also user who use this device for monitoring temperature and controlling Fan's for potatoes conservation. They use four of the 8 ADC's inputs and two outputs for relais.

Regards,

Gerard Zagema

Of course you can but not at the cost of a single pin. To interface directly with a Realtek, not just the PHY chip, requires address and data pins which eat all the h/w resources of a microcontroller. If no h/w resources remain why bother? Nobody needs a webserver that's not extensible. For instance how would you interface a LCD and keypad after all the I/O has been eaten in the Realtek interface?

I disagree. Bill Gates once asked, "Why would anyone want more than 640k of RAM?" History proves that users will quickly swallow every feature and ask for more.

That's a great start. Do you have the CPU resources to do a Fuzzy Inference between web requests or to do an interpolation of non-linear data? When your hardware _and_ software are maxed out it severely limits the possiblities. I prefer to design for the future, not the past.

-- Regards, Albert

---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I think Gerard was referring to designs which already interface to an external memory bus. In those circumstances, the CS line could well be externally decoded, along with all else, in a PAL or whatever. That's the benefit of memory mapping everything - zero overhead.

But even using a true microcontroller, the overhead of the RTL8019AS isn't all that great, since you don't actually need most of the address lines, and they can just be pulled. An example is Microchip's POC board for 10-baseT, which uses only five address lines, or 15 I/Os in total - reasonable on a 40-pin chip with 33 I/Os:

They aren't. Many pins on complex chips aren't really essential to basic operation, and good embedded designers learn to cut out the dead wood.

You're never required to deliver real working systems today, then? Nice job.

Maybe it depends on what the definition of "is" is. 15 i/o pins on a microcontroller eats quite a bit of cpu resources when most of those pins have to be bit-banged plus a lot of embedded micros require quite a few of those I/O pins when external memory is needed which would eliminate its use for an embedded controller/server.

Sarcasm is not a good way to have dialog, smartass.

-- Regards, Albert

---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, that's just not true. The demo board I mentioned is quite capable of running a simple web server with only a cheap PIC16F877 @5MIPS, doing HTTP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, IP, ARP etc. in addition to driving the Realtek chip. If you need more horsepower for your APP, swap it for a PIC18 @10MIPS, or re-design with whatever MPU you fancy.

If external memory is being used, then you'd presumably memory-map the PHY, as Gerard suggested, which results in zero overhead on I/O pins (or one pin for CE if you're not externally decoding address spaces).

Well, what sort of response do you expect to that sort of meaningless pomposity? I fail to see what is wrong with hanging a Realtek PHY on a cheap MCU to achieve 10-baseT connectivity, given that it meets the requirements of the project in hand. You seem to be suggesting that all projects should be over-engineered to allow for some nebulous degree of future expansion, irrespective of whether the client requires it or not (and, presumably, irrespective of cost). Frankly, I think that's an untenable position to take.