An introduction to Arduino micro-controller platform and C programming meant for the board. Introduction to debugging and hardware specification and limitations of the board.
3. ARDUINO DEVELOPMENT BOARD
• Eight bit microcontroller – brain of the board
• USB Port – to communicate with the desktop/laptop
• USB controller chip – manages USB transferred data
• IO pins – board’s connection to the outside world
• Quartz oscillator – board’s time keeper
• Reset button – taking the board back to its initial state
• External power jack – power from dedicated source
Co-axial jack, but USB can also be used
4. INPUT/OUTPUT PINS (I/O PINS)
Top and bottom rows of the board
Holes in the board which we can stick wires in
Holes are connected to the chips through traces on-board
14 Digital I/O pins on top [0-13]
Highs – 5 volts Lows – 0 volts Max Current - 40 mA
6 Analog input pins on the bottom [A0 – A5]
Power output pins on the bottom [ 5v , 3.3 v ]
Reset pin to reset the board to initial state
5. MICROCONTROLLERS
Two microcontrollers on the board
Main ATmega328 – 8 bit microcontroller
User programmable, runs user-written application code
Carries firmware, like bootloader
ATmega16U2
Handles the communication with the USB interface, not
directly accessible
6. STORAGE & MEMORY
Non-volatile flash memory for storage
32 kilobytes in size
Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) for memory (volatile)
3 kilobytes in size
7. CLOCK
16 MHz clock speed ~ 16 million operations per second
Helps synchronize all components together
Keeping track of occurrence of events
8. PROGRAMMING FIRMWARE
The ISCP headers can be used to program the firmware on
the board
ICSP1 for the main ATmega328 microcontroller
ICSP2 for the ATmega16U2 microcontroller
Special equipment are required in order to re-program the
firmware through these headers
9. SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT
• Arduino IDE – Integrated Development Environment
• Can be programmed using other IDEs too, like Eclipse
• Arduino IDE is more versatile
• Needs no special drivers or additional components
• Available for Windows, Linux and Mac
• Cross compiler – compiles for a different target platform than the one being programmed on
10. IDE – SOFTWARE TOOL FOR PROGRAMMING
File operations and other general options on top
Buttons for most commonly used options (Verify, Upload, etc.)
Main window – Text editor for writing code
Message area – for messages to the programmer
11. OPTIONS BUTTONS
Buttons on the top have the most common ,useful operations
Verify – compiles the code and checks for errors
Uploads – compiles the code, uploads it to the board. Works only
if the board is connected
New – creates a new sketch, a new program
Open – opens an existing sketch
Save – saves the current sketch in the directory of your choice
Serial Monitor – opens window to communicate with the board
12. TARGET PLATFORM
• ATmega328 – Arduino Uno’s processor
• Arduino shields – add on hardware for specific purposes
• Shields need no complicated circuitry – prewired
• Stacks of shields on top of the Arduino
• Prefabricated libraries of methods
13. ARDUINO SHIELDS
The prominent reason that Arduino got so popular
Additional hardware to do particular, complex tasks
Form of separate boards
Pre-wired pins that stick into holes in Arduino
Stack on top of the Arduino to make connections
Pre-written functions for operations of these boards
Open-source designs in most of the cases, third party
Complete list of shields at http://www.shieldlist.org
14. OPEN SOURCE
• Hardware – the board’s design is open source
http://www.arduino.cc
• Software – the IDE is open source, written in Java, modifiable, redistributable
• Open source community – easily available codes and help on troubleshooting
15. SETTING UP THE ENVIRONMENT
LEARNING TO CODE IN C/C++ FOR ARDUINO
16. RUNNING IDE ON WINDOWS
Emacs or NotePad++ text editor
Gcc C compiler
The debugger, gdb
IDE provides one-stop solution
17. ARDUINO IDE
Require Java Runtime Environment
Write codes in general C language
setup() – Initiates the variables and sets up device instances
loop() – Runs the code that contains operations and
manipulations, iterates infinitely
18. BLINK LED EXAMPLE
Pin 13 is represented by numeral 13
digitalWrite() writes voltage values to pins
delay() sets delays in milliseconds
HIGH – 5v LOW – 0v
19. ARDUINO PROGRAMS AND THE BUILD PROCESS
HOW IT IS SAME BUT DIFFERENT TO CODE FOR THE BOARDS
20. Source
code
Executable
file
Hex file
Uploaded
to board
ARDUINO TOOLCHAIN
Steps taken post code authoring
Source code(sketch) is compiled to an executable format
Executable file is linked with libraries and interpreted into a
hex file
Hex file is uploaded to board
Starts executing right away
21. CROSS COMPILATION
Compile on one machine, but the target is another machine.
E.g.: compiling it on an Intel processor, compiling it for an AVR processor
avr-gcc – C compiler for AVR targets, gives a *.o file
avr-lnk – links library object files, results in a *.elf file
avr-objcopy – change the *.elf file into Arduino compatible *.hex file
23. DEBUGGING
• Finding reasons of erroneous execution or failure of execution
• Software problems
• Require ‘controllability’ and ‘observability’
• Controllability: the ability to control sources of data that are used by the system
Allows to do testing to test certain circumstances that might be causing a bug or triggering a bug at
any rate
• Observability: the ability to observe intermediate and final results
An oscilloscope, multi-meter, or the serial monitor could be used
24. REAL TIME MONITORING
• Includes dynamic observation of the target and its state
• Viewing data about the execution as it occurs
• Not intrusive in terms of performance
• Important for timing constraint IoT systems
• Provides timing and functional accuracy
25. REMOTE DEBUGGING
Remote Debugger
• Host computer acts as debugger for a code that runs on the remote target system
• Host computer are also the systems that the programmer programs on
• Host provides the platform to interface with the debugging environment.
• Provides good run control, not good for testing timing
Embedded Debug Interface
• Seen in modern processors, Arduino and its likes have trace macrocells
• Built in to the processor
• Hardware dedicated to do debugging directly
26. SERIAL PROTOCOLS FOR DEBUGGING
• UART: Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter, an old protocol, still useful though.
• Low hardware overhead
• Transmits at 9600 baud
• START and STOP buts are used for synchronization
• The bits in between a START bit and the next STOP bit is the data
• To distinguish, the receiver samples at 16 times higher rate than the baud rate
• Serial interface can be used to both send data to and from the Arduino board