Looking for Ideas/Opinions

You should be able to do that with a microcontroller -- but there's a wide range of microcontrollers available. I get the impression that you really mean _8-bit_ microcontrollers.

It really boils down to the speed that you want to do all this, and how much effort you want to put into streamlining the software. You need to pay attention how fast the RFID and analog transducer are being sampled.

If it were me I'd choose some likely candidates, write some nice portable C, see if I could get free compilers, and do some benchmarking.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll take a leap of faith here and begin experimenting with the AVR. It seems to have a lot of potential.

In terms of redundant storage to two SD cards (or CF cards) - this is no problem?

Cheers

William

I've done much of this with an MSP430F148, with plenty of capacity to spare. The mspgcc tools are free and good, it's easy to design in, and very low power (not that you'll be worried about that if your GPS is on a lot). If 12 bit (with the usual on-chip problems) is good enough for your transducer, you won't need an external ADC either.

Paul Burke

SNIP

I would avoid PIC's, the compilers are not free,some of them can not link, C code is not portable and the tools are a bit awkward. (I am forced to use PICs at the moment as they happen to be on some evaluation boards) Personally I would prefer AVR which has a good free GCC comiler.

Wim

Almost any microcotroller can do your job with power left to spare, so it would be hard to make the wrong choice !

I suggest you choose a microprocessor family which you want to add to your toolkit for general use. Does the family have high end and low end parts ? Are you comfortable with the part cost ?

Unless you are making 100s of thousands of units and must save every cent, I suggest picking a family which is modern and has a lot of grunt, so as to make the programming task easier. If I suggest a family, I will get shouted down by other people, which just proves choice of family is not critical !

The AVR and MSP430 families are modern and high throughput and popular. I will duck for cover and say that the 8051 architecture is getting dated and produces larger code size and slower throughput, even for the souped up versions. Of course, the 8051 derivatives are enormously popular and keenly priced !

Roger

I made a project very similar to your one, also with graphic lcd and battery monitor, with an st upsd3233 8051 derivative