Want suggestion for a microcontroller for capstone univ. project

Hi All, I would like to hear your input for the selection of a microcontroller used on a vehicle gudiance/navigation system. The vehicle is required to track a long range signal beacon (~30meters away). The requirement of the microcontroller is: 1) low cost 2) programmable in C and 3) easy to debug. I would appreciate any suggestions that you can bring.

Regards,

PQ

Reply to
Peter Q.
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Get an old PC; it has all of that. If you want to look like a real engineer, you may open the cover of the system block.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

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Reply to
Vladimir Vassilevsky

as much as I enjoy dissemabling old PCs (not really), we are very short on time, and need something that is readily available. We are investigating PICs as an option, but heard that it is very hard to debug them. Hence I came here to ask you guys for some suggestions.

Regards,

PQ

Reply to
Peter Q.

That's why you need a PC. This is absolutely the quickest, the cheapest and the simplest way to get the things up and running.

With PIC, AVR, ARM or anything else you will have to do a lot of tedious stuff on the low level hardware initializations. Unless you are experienced with this type of work, it will be months before you get anything useful.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

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Reply to
Vladimir Vassilevsky

Vladimir gave you good advice. Assume it will take you a few weeks to understand the tools and the mindset necessary to use a small processor in an application. Add that to the project unknowns and short term a disaster awaits.

For a prototype a PC is a good choice. At the very least prototype the software on a PC especially so you have a means of regression testing the the navigation software.

w..

Reply to
Walter Banks

Cost and energy spent is also an issue with this project. A high cost/ high power consumption solution is not acceptable. I am willing to investigate the platform even if it takes weeks. Right now I'm considering PICs and Motorola 68HC12 series.

Regards,

PQ

Reply to
s.p.qian

Consider a handheld PC for the prototype, low cost and low power requirements. Have a good idea of your system requirements before selecting one.

w..

Reply to
Walter Banks

Get ye to Sparkfun

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and take a look at their goodies. I'm lately fond of the NXP ARM7 dev boards (LPC2000-series) that they offer. Most (many? all?) of them are sourced from Olimex and are aimed at prototypes & small runs. Lots of I/O, lots of memory.

I there's a GCC toolchain for the ARM7, as well as some expensive-ware from the usual suspects. My personal preference is for the not-so-expensive-ware from Imagecraft (trial and free-but-limited versions at

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For programming/debugging you'll probably want/need a JTAG setup. The Segger J-Link is good but a bit $$. A low-cost option may be H-JTAG software

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which works with the Olimex parallel port JTAG adapter (see the Olimex site for a tweaked version); only slightly higher is the USB Scarab dongle + software, also available at Sparkfun.

While you're at Sparkfun, you're likely to find other gizmos that may be useful, like 6 DOF IMUs (you supply the Kalman) and various RF widgets. Fun place.

Reply to
Rich Webb

Do you know how much code, and what numeric data types you will work with ? That should help narrow the choices.

At the smaller end, focus on the Debug pathway - a good example here, are the SiLabs Low cost ToolStick series - USB debug, and a small daughter card, with the target on it. You can use these cards in low volume production. Very good analog performance, and low powers, with fast wakeups.

Moving up CPU power, I'd skip the HC12 (unless you have code-leverage reasons for looking at this ).

Again focus on Simulation and Debug. With a HLL, the core is more 'don't care' these days.

We found the Zilog Zneo Z16F good : USB debug, one shop supply advantages, Tools are mature and Non-Crippled Compiler is free, and include a Simulator, and the Z16F has some 64 bit operand opcodes, includes divide. sub $100, includes EvalPCB _and_ USB-debug

Also Rabbit ? - Not single chip, and higher start price, but they do have attractive modules for low-med volumes

The 32 bit core market is expanding : Again look for good Debug, and non-crippled tools. ( The USB debug prices can creep a little here. )

Freescale have a new V1 coldfire they are pushing. Atmel have AVR32, and also ARM7 and ARM9 ST have ARM7, ARM9 and M3 cores. NXP have ARM7, ARM9 uC, and some new ARM9 Flash devices -etc-

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Hi, I would hope to do most of the signal processing by means of circuitry, instead of DSP, since I've heard these chips may be limited in processing capabilities. My budget for the chip is < $10 unit cost bulk order, I don't care about the programmers and software cost. In terms of data input, eventually I will need to process two or three sensory inputs, and control two motors (differential drive for steering). Nothing complicated like image processing. Thanks to all of you who offered suggested, I'm looking into each one of them now.

Regards,

PQ

Reply to
Peter Q.

If this is a univ project, you could also look at this effort :

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and

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This looks to have an impressive 'PC End' SW suite, as well as using capable, but still simple PCB Modules.

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Why take it apart? Unless you are space constrained, using a PC whole will get you a working microprocessor system very fast. Even an old laptop running freeDOS or Linux would get you on the road (as it were).

PICs aren't that bad to debug if you get one of the development boards with a built in JTAG to USB debugger. Any 8-bit processor is going to be a similar debugging challenge to a PIC, if not worse.

How big is this thing?

--
Tim Wescott
Control systems and communications consulting
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

"Peter Q." skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...

The AVR32 will run up to 89 Dhrystone MIPS which is not too bad and it has extra DSP features, usually not present in a small Micro. The instruction set support saturation which is important for DSP applications.

Also single cycle multiply-accumulate, (ARM7 = 5 cycles) and a divide instruction (not present on ARM7). Single cycle load instruction (from internal SRAM). (ARM7 uses at least 3 cycles -1 Sequential + 1 Non-Sequential + 1 Internal from zero waitstate SRAM).

It will have much lower power and higher performance than the ARM7 alternatives.

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Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
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Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

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luminary eval kits generally include usb jtag on-board. So no additional hardware is required to program/debug your micro. Keil & IAR has code limited versions (16kB & 32kB respectively) for simple i/o applications it is also very easy to get something run. They have a very good-simple library to use peripherals.

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-- you will generally need jtag.

But Some Atmel SAM7 parts (USB ones) can be progammed through USB (samba).

Reply to
tesla

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