From: Tim Meese [timm@mbari.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 2:27 PM
To: Brent Roman
Cc: Cline, Danelle; Wayne Radochonski; Jensen, Scott
Subject: MSP430 and Philips LPC2138

On Mon, 2005-05-23 at 23:18 -0700, Brent Roman wrote:
> Hi Danelle,
> 
> I'm helping Chris and Roman with protocol development tomorrow.  I'll 
> try to get them to a state where I can break away by 11AM.  However, 
> Scott or I may need to stay in the lab.

Hi Danelle,

I had MOOS/SIAM and Tiburon related activity going on this morning and had to work on some issues that were brought up. My apologies for not making the meeting -- I wanted to attend. Would it be possible to re- schedule the meeting for later this week? 

Brent has a good suggestion as far as a standard PC/104 boards are concerned. If you're looking to run Linux, an ARM9 or PXA255 would probably be the best processors to look for. 

The PXA gets a lot of development 'momentum' from the Linux community as it's used in a lot of PDAs and 3rd party boards like this one:
http://www.gumstix.com/products.html. This board (gumstix) is quite small if form factor is important and they have support for bluetooth, which might be nice to do config/debug with the rover during development/deployment. 

If you're looking to run a minimal or no OS, or perhaps a separate motor control processor like ESP has done, I'd recommend an MSP430 if low power is important, or a Philips LPC2138 if power is not as limiting a factor. We're using the '2138 on the MOOS Fiber optic network switch board. I think it's a fabulous chip -- it's an ARM7 core with 512KB of codespace (enough for a decent app, small TCP/IP stack and then some).
The Philips ARM7 processors also have built-in CAN, ADC/DAC, I2C, and hardware PWM depending on the model. ARM tools are getting more mature all the time and a decent toolchain and USB JTAG debugger can be had for reasonable money. 

Thanks,

Tim

> We'll bring a couple vendors' PC/104 ARM CPUs for show-and-tell :-)
> 
> I've exported a .pdf version of our review from last December to my 
> tempbox:
> 
> //tempbox/brent/softdesign.pdf
> 
> It has a few slides you might find interesting.
> 
> - brent
> 
> 
> Cline, Danelle wrote:
> 
> >Hi Wayne, Tim, Scott and Brent,
> >
> >I'd like to talk with you about controller and operating system 
> >options for the Benthic Rover project.  Could you meet tomorrow at 11 
> >am in the Surface Commons to discuss this ? Please send me a quick 
> >email to let me know if you can meet, or suggest another time if that 
> >doesn't work for you.
> >
> >The Benthic Rover project is a ~10 year old WHOI project our new 
> >scientist Ken Smith has brought with him. What MBARI is doing is 
> >building a second generation Benthic Rover with a modern controller 
> >and COTS instruments where possible.
> >
> >What I want to talk about is:
> >
> >Could we reuse any of your existing controller boards ?
> >
> >What are your OS suggestions ?  I'm also particularly interested in 
> >hearing what kinds of cross-development tools you've had success 
> >with, and how power management is done with the ARM processors
> >
> >The Benthic Rover needs a design that supports: storage (e.g. compact 
> >flash), a USB port, RS485 and RS232 serial ports for COTS instrument, 
> >and both brushed and brushless stepper motor control.
> >
> >The Benthic Rover requires power management for the central 
> >controller and all peripheral devices. It's deployed for 6 months on battery power.
> >It function is basically to (1) crawl to a new site taking a few 
> >pictures along the transit, then (2) when at the site, takes a slew 
> >of measurements (typically from serial instruments and a few frame 
> >grabs), then (3) go back to sleep until the next sample. The two 
> >continuously powered components are the central controller and a stir 
> >motor in the benthic respirometer. The only hard real-time 
> >requirement is for motion control, which is probably best done in firmware.
> >
> >Thanks for your help.
> >
> >Danelle
> >====================================== 
> >Danelle E. Cline, Software Engineer R&D Division        
> >Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute http://www.mbari.org
> >(831) 775-1947 voice
> >(831) 775-1652 fax
> >======================================
> >
> >  
> >
> 
>