LED DESTINATION BOARD

CONTROLLER FUNCTIONALITY OVERVIEW:

Þ STM32 controller is basically used to drive LED panels to display some information
related to bus route no, bus stops details in different patterns. The information’s
to be displayed are received from external devices in the form of hexadecimal
data through RS485.
Þ Each led destination board installed in a BUS has controller with different ID such
as 0x31-Front,0x32-Side,0x33-Rear,0x34-Inbus. The received data is first
compared and validated with this specific ID and then get updated to the new
routes or new information.
Þ LDR is interfaced directly to the controller to sense the ambient lightings and
optimize brightness based on the LDR values.
Þ Existing hardware architecture uses only GD32f105 internal flash to boot
firmware and load content details of maximum size 4KB.

PROBLEMS FACED WITH THE EXISTING ARCHITECTURE:

Þ Normally during the initial bootup LED destination board displays its unique ID
number and then fetches the last received data before the LED destination board
gets powered off. So initially the fetched old data will get displayed if there is no
any new data received from RS485.
Þ But The problem frequently faced in the field is only the pre-defined ID gets
displayed and the older data can’t be retrieved and updating of new routes are
also not getting displayed in the LED destination board. The LED remains blank
with no content.
Þ This could only be solved when someone externally load new firmware via
ST_LINK.

INSTANT SOLUTION TO OVERCOME ISSUE WITH EXISTING ARCHITECTURE:

Þ Option1: It will be better if we could store additional copy of the same firmware
inside internal flash and reload it whenever the primary firmware gets corrupted
by passing an external command to controller card.
Þ Option2: If reloading of the duplicated firmware from internal flash is a difficult
task, then we can manage to add external flash of size 8MB.
Þ Option3: If renovating the existing code to add bootloader for reloading the
firmware is difficult, we can start the code from scratch and release the firmware
with basic option which should later be updated through RS485 from an external
device after adding complete features.
REQUIRED FUNCTIONS:
1. Display content in single line with modes static, scrolling and
blinking.
2. Display content in double line with configurable modes static,
scrolling and blinking for individual lines.
3. Route number space should support up to 0-6digits.
4. Should support multiple pages with each page having its
separate information. (at least 5 pages)
5. Should support PID DTC which should pass the health data of
the LED destination board to the external device via RS485.
6. Static brightness should be configured via rs485 also it should
support auto-brightness variation by interfacing LDR.
7. Additional margin GIF should be configurable via rs485.
8. Need to update firmware through rs485.
9. The controller should be able to send return acknowledgment
for the data received through rs485.
10. Firmware should be common for all types of destination
boards which should be configured via rs485.
11. Controller should support maximum 15kb of information size
which should be displayed in the LED destination board.
12. If total information is of size 15kB the controller should be
able to receive data in modules of 1KB 15 times with return
acknowledgement.
13. The received data should be validated with checksum to
confirm the file size before its start receiving the data.