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Week #8 EMBEDDED PROGRAMMING




Assignment





Week workflow

This is how I see my week


Softwares used


Read a microcontroller data sheet



To design the board I refereed to the ATtiny Microcontroller Pin-Outs scheme showing the parallels between the ATtiny44 and Arduino given on High Low Tech programmer web site. Studying the ATtiny Microcontroller datasheet as rewquired that week I started comparing Pin's.

Fig.1: ATtiny Microcontroller Pin-Outs

Program your board to do something



Using Arduino IDE



When it came to programming the actual board using the Arduino IDE, I followed the instructions given in a tutorial on High Low Tech. This page links to the Atmel ATtiny library for Arduino, explains how to install it, and how to set up the parameters for programming. It also shows a very handy diagram showing the parallels between the ATtiny44 and Arduino, needed to put the right pin references into the code.

Once the ATtiny library has been installed, I followed the workflow described below 


Workflow:
        - Go to Tools / Select Board "ATtiny" / Processor "ATiny44 / Clock "20 Mhz" (external")
        - Click on Burn bootloader

Fig.2: Workflow set

As expected ... I get my first error message mentionning issues regarding my connections

Fig.3: First error message

Troubleshooting


Fig.4: Checking connection errors

Using the multimeter, I've discovered that on FTDI pin was not solder properly. After fixing it, I restart the "Burn bootloader" again and it works !!!

Victory !!!


As a first test to program the board, I run the blinks sequence on the LED example given by Arduino. This worked instantly as I pushed the code onto the board. I literally jumped up and shouted out a victory cry when I saw the LED lighting up in the sequence I wrote! It was truly an amazing moment, I saw my whole project coming into sight!

Fig.5: Pushing the code onto the board

Fig.6: LED lighting up in the sequence 

 For the final project the button will be changed with a potentiometer to light the  Aquaponic LED lighting system  at varying brightnesses (i.e. Fig 7)

Writing my own code


Final Project evolution



POC#1's brain architecture



This weekly assignment helps me start thinking about the electronic architecture of the aquaponic system "Brain". Which sensor should I develop first ? How do I design the electronic architecture leveraing already developed sensors & Fabduino from last years Fab Academy students ? How do I consider their compatibility with already comercial parts such RasberyPi ? What are the data I would like to keep loally and what are the one I would like to send to the cloud ? Which platform should I consider to send my data having in mind scalability if a business can start from this POC ? etc

Fortunately, I meet our in-house electronic genius Guillem from the Smart Citizen team that tremendously help me answering these questions and drawing the following electronic architecture

Fig.7: "The Brain" architecture

Starting with the Air T°C & Humidity sensors + Dashboard



Last year, I built an Open Energy Monitor system based on Arduino at home, to measure my electricity consumption. I decide to reused some parts of this project to start the "brain" construction with:

  • A DHT22 temperature-humidity sensor with a RFM12B wireless transmitter onboard
  • A normal Arduino with an ENC8J60 based Ethernet and a RFM12B wireless transceiver onboard. This makes it a bridge between wireless T°C and humidity sensor and the internet.
  • A wireless graphical LCD displaying monitoring data powered by an Arduino compatible Atmega328 and a RFM12B wireless transceiver onboard
  • A cloud-based database with a customizable dashboard to display data.

    • Fig.8: Wireless DHT22 temperature-humidity sensors + Wireless Graphical LCD displaying

    Fig.9: Actual Brain architecture

    Now that the Temperature and Humidity sensor data values are registered in the cloud-based data base, these data can viewed in dashboard as shown in Fig.10

    Fig.10. Historic and Real Time T°C and Humidity data from POC#1


    Download


    You access and download all the files generated during this week from my google drive:




    Conclusion


    I was completely new to Electronic design and it has been a great introduction week. One of the great learning of this week is about the settings you need to take care (i.e. grid settings, net settings ) before starting editing the traces on the board. What's more, it is essential to adapt the Design Rules according to your local machine / tools and check if DRC are all respected before exporting your your file.