PCB PROTOTYPING

MARCH 2023
c irc u itce lla r.co m ISSUE 392

circuit cellar Inspiring the Evolution of Embedded Design

DESIGN &
PROTOTYPING

I DSPs & DSCs I ANT+ Protocol Light Control via Garmin Navigator |

Autonomous Beach Cleaning Robot | Give Your Robot a Sense of Direction |

Smart Home Without the Cloud I Power Consumption Monitor for

loT Boards Using a Teensy 4.1 | Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to

1/68 Determine Location The Future of Supply Chain Management

Imagine what you will

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2 CiRCUJT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
Makers and Navigators
his month brings a projects-filled issue of Circuit Cellar Coincidentally,
some of these projects share a common theme of beaconsand n a v ig a tio n -
bike tail lights, compass modules, microcontrollers (MCUs) as beacons,
and robots navigating beaches. It’s been fun to note synchronicities such
as these in each issue. I guess the old adage about great minds is true.
Carlo Tauraso wanted to be able to control his bicycle's tail light from his Garmin
navigator without having to stop his ride. So, he built a light that does precisely
that. His light, which he calls the CtrlANT+, uses Nordic Semiconductor's nRF52832
MCU and the ANT+ wireless protocol. He repurposed existing features of his Garmin
GPSMAP 64st navigator to be able activate the light from his seat. Read the details
on page 4. Ride on, Carlo!
Lego king Chris Cantrell tells you how to build your own four-wheeled Lego robot,
complete with compass module so it doesn't get lost in the woods. In his article, "The
Compass Bot," he shows code solutions to address the pesky problem of "hard iron"
and "soft iron" affecting your compass. His module solution is cheaper than existing
PC GPS modules on the market, and it's a great way to learn how to handle distorted
compass readings. Check it out on page 18.
Most commercial smart home systems are cloud-based, and thus have problems
with privacy, security, and reliability. In search of a home automation solution that
doesn't use the cloud, Dev Gualtieri replaced his X10 home automation system with
one that uses a Raspberry Pi Model 3B+ single-board computer (SBC) and Wi-Fi-
enabled switches, dimmers, and plugs. Read more in his feature on page 24.
The Cornell Nexus team, based out of Cornell University, are devoted to developing
engineering solutions to the problem of microplastics pollution in the environment.
Their current project is an autonomous robot designed to collect microplastics from
beaches. Angela Loh, co-founder of Cornell Nexus and a recent graduate from Cornell,
provides an overview of the project on page 12.
In researching the Technology Feature this month—which covers companies and
products that can assist the prototype maker with their printed circuit board (PCB)
creation—Mike Lynes discovered something: PCB fabrication bots. Much like the use
of 3D printers fo r mechanical part fabrication, these devices print your PCB for you
right in your workspace. He breaks down this burgeoning tech and other key plays in
the PCB prototype market on page 32.
In his Picking Up Mixed Signals column, Brian Millier covers monitoring the
power consumption of Internet-of-Things (loT) boards. Battery-powered loT boards
consume power over a wide dynamic range. Brian uses a Teensy 4.1 MCU, high-side
current monitors, and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) to measure the currents
these devices consume and the power they draw. Check it out on page 42.
Jeff Bachiochi writes about Bluetooth beacons in his column From the Bench. He
shows how to use the advertisement ability of Bluetooth Low Energy—in this case via
the ESP32—to determine location, using identity and signal strength as clues. It's a
fun and interesting project. Read more on page 52.
This month's Tech the Future covers key questions to ask supply chain partners in
the face of continuing supply chain disruptions. The right strategies can help mitigate
supply chain woes. And check out Datasheet for
a round-up of recent digital signal processors
(DSPs) and digital signal controllers (DSCs).
Wherever this issue may find you, I hope
some of these pieces give you new insight and
inspiration in your own work. So please read on,
and enjoy.
swallace@circuitcellar.com
Issue 3 92 March 2023 | ISSN 1 52 8-0608
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 circuitcellar.com 3

O U R NETW ORK

(• ' circuit cellar

Bicycle Light Using ANT+ Protocol
LinuxCizmos Tail Light Control via Garmin Navigator
^ ffT H x p re s s By Carlo Tauraso

I f h
I
LOUDSPEAKER
IN D U B lV Y
VOICE.1COIL
12 Autonom ous Beach Cleaning Robot
A High-Level Overview
L I SOURCEBOOK By Angela Loh

SUPPORTING COMPANIES 18 The Compass Bot

Or: How to Give Your Robot a Sense o f Direction
AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2023 11 By Chris Cantrell

Avnet 51
Sm art Home W ithout the Cloud
CCS, Inc. 61 Ultim ate Control Using Raspberry Pi
Digi ConnectCore 62 By Dev Gualtieri

Embedded World 2023 31

TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
PCBWay 17 PCB Design and Prototyping
Rigol 23 By Michael Lynes

Technologic Systems, Inc. C4, 61 DATASHEET

NOT A SUPPORTING DSPs & DSCs

COMPANY YET? High Performance Chips for Digital Signal Processing and Control
Contact Hugh Heinsohn By Sam Wallace
hugh@ circuitcellar.com,
Phone: 757-525-3677,
Fax: 888-980-1303
to reserve space in the
next issue of Circuit Cellar. Picking Up Mixed Signals
THE TEAM A Power Consum ption M onitor for lo T Boards
Using a Teensy 4.1 MCU, High-Side Current Monitors, and ADCs
FOUNDER Steve C iarcia
PUBLISHER KC P re sco tt
By Brian M illier
CONTROLLER Chuck Fellows From the Bench
ED ITO R -IN -C H IEF Sam W allace
SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Seeing Through the Fog
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Using BLE Advertisem ent to Determ ine Location
TECHNICAL COPY EDITOR
Carol Bow er By Jeff Bachiochi
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TECH THE FUTURE
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Three Questions to Ask Your Supply Chain Partner
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Hugh Heinsohn By Doug Adams & Peggy Carrieres
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H eather C h ild re y

COLUMNISTS
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58 : Product News 62 : TEST YOUR EQ
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Colin O'Flynn (Embedded Systems Essentials) @circuitcellar circuitcellar circuitcellar
4 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
S
E
R
U
T
A
E
F
ANT+ is a wireless protocol used in sports devices. I use this technology,
along with Nordic Semiconductor's nRF52832 microcontroller (MCU), to
build a bicycle tail light. The light is activated by a Garmin GPSMAP 64st
navigator, with its existing integrated features repurposed.
n my last article ("Sports Wearable Uses
ANT+ Protocol," Circuit Cellar #377,
December, 2021) [1], I promised myself
to continue my journey in developing
ANT+ devices—perhaps integrating them with
commercial sports products. The inspiration
for this article was born from a bike training
session. Like many others, I use a Garmin
device to record my rides. As a cyclist, I love
just riding, and the fewer buttons I have to
press and menus to explore, the better.
Many bicycle computers, navigators, and
smart watches integrate control functions of
external devices, such as action cameras, mp3
players, or several kinds of sensors. Thus, I
decided to make an ANT+ networked bike light.
You'd be able to activate this light directly
from a Garmin Navigator, such as a GPSMAP
64st, by taking advantage of the integrated
features for the Garmin VIRB action camera.
Thus, you wouldn't need to stop your workout
to activate the rear light, when it's time to be
seen rather than to see. It would be useful for
the cyclist to have control of the rear light from
a convenient remote device, such as a watch
or bike computer placed on the handlebar. I
reused the microcontroller (MCU) from my last
project, the nRF52832 system-on-a-chip (SoC)
from Nordic Semiconductors, Inc.
The goal of this month's project is to use
again the profile-oriented development system
made available by Dynastream Inc. I would
like to distribute a sample code of the so-
called "Controls Device Profile." I thought that
this solution could be useful for those who are
entering the world of MCU development for the
first time, since this profile has documentation,
but it isn't present in the SDKs. Having no
reference code could discourage a newbie from
having to "reinvent the wheel." So, I thought
about modifying my latest firmware as needed.
I hope I have simplified the logical flow behind
the development of any other profile.
You have to consider the bike light as just
an application example. It allows you to easily
experiment and test the firmware directly
with everyday devices. There are already
sim ilar ANT+ devices on the market, including
ACE lights and Garmin's Varia (a radar tail
light that warns of vehicles approaching from
the rear). My solution is cheaper and limited,
but has the advantage that you can build
it entirely by yourself, experimenting with
alternative customizations and solutions.
I also designed a light box model, using
SketchUp software, that you can make with a
3D printer. Hopefully this will be of us in other
scenarios the readers comes up with.
The initial prototype for my project consists
of a video-controlled device that could be used
both through the integrated functions of a GPS
navigator (Garmin GPSMAP 64st) and a remote
control for selfies (Garmin VIRB Action CAM
Remote Control). Then I added a command
interpreter, which uses the same command
identification codes as those transmitted by

commercial devices, to turn the light on and off.
You can use the same system to control other
devices, such as a relay or an inductive load.
Reading the documentation, I realized that
the ANT+ protocol is well suited for sending
control information between devices. The
Controls Device Profile defines data formats for
a large variety of remotely controllable devices—
from the most generic (Keypad Control) to the
most specialized (Audio Control). The profile
even provides a multi-use case implementation.
You can combine different use cases such that
a remote control is able to control multiple
types of controllable devices, and a controllable
device may support multiple-use cases,
broadcasting information as needed. Using
this kind of implementation, you can develop
a multipurpose device capable of associating,
in seconds, with different types of commercial
outdoor devices.
I wanted to share this small project—
from its firmware, an ANT+ Controls Device
Profile based on the Nordic Semiconductor
S212 SoftDevice, to its realization in a small
circuit with an nRF52832 core, complete with
a 3D-printed plastic case. So, hopefully having
sparked your curiosity, let's start with an
analysis of the Video Control use case. Consider
it a sort of least common denominator of all the
other use cases. It's the simplest to understand,
but it also offers all the logical structures you
need to create more complex systems.
EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL
The ANT+ Controls Device Profile supports
multiple use cases—Audio, Video, Generic, and
Keypad. In this project, I implemented the Video
Control use case, because the navigator I use
frequently (GPSMAP 64st) has a special remote­
control function for controlling a Garmin VIRB
Action CAM. The device acts as a video recording
device, while the navigator serves as a remote
control. By default, the ANT+ video device will
broadcast its video status. The remote control
will send a video command to change the
device status ("Stop/Start Recording," "Take a
Photo"). The "CtrlANT+," as I call the device I
developed in this project, will interpret the Start
Recording and Take a Photo commands as "light
on," and Stop Recording as "light off." Remote
commands will be sent sequentially, and are
independent. Each command has a special
sequential progressive number, which allows
any retransmissions of the same command to
be recognized.
Each ANT+ Device Profile contains the
network rules relevant to a specific use case.
For a video-controlled device we set the
channel type to 16 (0x10 master channel),
the network key to the obtained sequence
number to "ANT+ Adopter," the RF channel
frequency to 57 (2,457MHz), the transmission
circuitcellar.com
type as standard (not extended), the device
type as controlled device 16 (0x10), the
device number as video-controlled device
(0x207), and the channel period as 4Hz so the
messages have a rate of four per second.
Remember that to obtain the ANT+ network
key for your personal devices, you need to
become an "ANT+ Adopter" and agree to the
terms of use. Devices use the network key to
identify and access the ANT+ network; the radio
module will not hear transmissions occurring
on other networks. In the source code this field
is all zeros, so everyone can use their own key.
If you are only experimenting with ANT+, you
can use the public network key, too.
You can find all the details of these
configuration parameters in the ANT+
protocol documentation made available on
the ANT+ website [2]. For details on the use
case development, I suggest you read the
ANT+ Controls Device Profile [3].
The CtrlANT+ acts as a controller, and
each controller in an ANT+ network has an
ANT channel ID, as well as a value comprised
of the device number, device type, and
transmission type. This identifier is critical
during the pairing process, when the remote
searches for the controller to determine the
specific channel ID. After devices are paired,
the remote device control can begin.
To develop a profile correctly, you need
to understand the sequence of messages
that controller and remote exchange during
execution. In my case, the controlled device
broadcasts Data Page 7, which contains its
status and expects to receive a user-requested
video command through Data Page 16, sent
from the remote control using an acknowledged
message. You can see a summary of the
message sequence in Figure 1.
PRIMARY CONTROLS PROFILE
DATA PAGES
Let's analyze the two fundamental data
pages of this profile, 7 and 16, in detail.
Figure 1
Video Control Use Case
6 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Data Page 7 is a required page, and it is the way, because we are controlling a bike light
prim ary data page sent from a video device. instead of an action CAM. Time Progressed is
It has six param eters, form atted as shown in the current progression in seconds from the
Table 1. m om ent the light is turned on. This allows the
The fields used in this project are: Time cyclist to know th a t the rear light is actually
S
Progressed, Capabilities, and Status. We on and fo r how long. Capabilities has the
E have interpreted th e ir meaning in a different value 1, so we use the commands reserved
R
U fo r devices supporting video recording. Status
T
A
E is the most im p o rta n t field. It indicates the
F Length
current state of the device: 3 = light is off, and
Data Page Number Data Page Number = 0x07 [7] 7 = light is on. This field can take on several
Bit[7] 0=Muted other values, but fo r my project, these two
l= N o t Muted states are more than enough.
Volume 1 byte To make the firm w are more understandable,
Bit[6:0] 0-100= Volume percentage %
I f unused set to OxFF I have only implemented the Minimum Data
Page Requirements: Data Page 7 and Data
The tim e remaining th a t is available Page 16, along with Data Page 80 and 81. The
Time Remaining for record ing/playi ng 2 bytes latter two are Background Pages, containing
I f unused set to OxFFFF the m anufacturer's identification and product
Current number of seconds into information.
Time Progressed playback/recording 2 bytes The controlled device will transm it Data Page
I f unused set to OxFFFF 7 at a 4Hz message rate—four times per second.
The remote device uses an acknowledged
B it[2:7] Reserved Set to 0
message to send the Data Page 16. So, the
B it[l] 0=Does not support Video Playback application can determine if the data page was
Capabilities l= S upports Video Playback 1 byte successfully received or if it needs to be resent.
Bit[O] 0=Does not support Video Recorder The application will determine if the data page
l= S upports Video Recorder needs to be resent. This page has seven fields
0= The Video Device is off formatted (Table 2).
For this project, the most im p o rta n t fields
3= The Video Device is stopped
Status 1 byte are Serial Number, Sequence, and Command
7= The Video Device is recording
Number. The Serial Number contains the
■■■
identification number of the remote control.
Table 1
The controlled device chooses to ignore or act
Data Page 7 parameters and their formats. on the command request. Typically, it discards
commands from the remote control w ith a
different identification number. The Sequence
is a number th a t is incremented w ith each new
command. The field rolls over when it reaches
the value 256 (OxFF). It is possible th a t the
remote control resends a command if there
is a transm ission e rro r or if the controlled
device fails to receive the ACK. In this way,
our bike light can differentiate between a new
command and a repeated command, and it
discards repeated commands.
The Command Number determines the
command sent. There are several types of
commands. The firs t 20 are well known and
are not customizable, but the next 107 can
be used as needed. In this project I use three
main commands: R e co rd (id = 19), Take
p h o to (id = 21), and S to p (id = 3). The firs t
tw o can be used interchangeably to turn on the
light, whereas the second is used to turn it off.
During development, you have to ensure
th a t in the num eric field, the m ost significant
b it is set to 1, because you are controlling
a video device. Since we sim ulate a video
device, 128 m ust be added, due to the value 1
assigned to b it 7. So, the commands received
Table 2
Data Page 16 fields and their formats.
from the CtrlANT+ w ill be L ig h t ON = 19 +
 circuitcellar.com

128 = (147) or 21 + 128 = (149), and L ig h t

OFF = 3 + 128 = (131). ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carlo Tauraso (carlotauraso@gmail.com) studied computer engineering at
DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION- the University of Trieste in Italy and wrote his first assembler code for the
THE CTRLANT+ BOARD Sinclair Research ZX Spectrum. He's currently a senior software engineer
I used the same breakout board described who does firmware development on network devices and various types of
in my previous article [1]—a core module, Yj- microinterfaces for a range of European companies. Several of Carlo's articles
16002 (Holyiot Technology Co., Ltd.) based and programming courses about Microchip Technology PIC MCUs (USB-PIC,
on the nRF52832. (Note: The Yj-16002 is no CAN bus PIC, SD CARD, C18) have been published in Italy, France, and Spain.
longer available, except from alibaba.com.) I t In his spare time, Carlo enjoys playing with radio scanners and homemade
is built around the nRF52832, a m ultiprotocol metal detectors.
SoC fo r ULP wireless applications produced
by Nordic Semiconductors. It incorporates an
ARM Cortex M4 CPU w ith floating point unit we divide 80 by 200 (the BC547 transistor's
running at 64MHz, 512KB flash memory, 64KB m inim um Beta), so its value is 0.4mA. You can
RAM, and a powerful radio transceiver on calculate the transistor base resistance by
2.4GHz. I t is on-air compatible w ith the nRF51 subtracting from 3V the base-em itter voltage
and nRF24AP series. of 0.7V and dividing by 0.4mA, to get 5.75kQ.
The nRF52 series RF transceiver is I round this to the commercial value 4.7kQ.
interoperable with ANT+, BLE 5 (Bluetooth Low When GPIO pin P0.17 is low, Q I turns off,
Energy), and other 2Mbps 2.4GHz proprietary acting like an open switch, and zero collector
stacks. Figure 2 is the schematic and parts list. current flows (Cut-Off Region). Therefore, a
As you can see, the nRF52832 is in the basic small base current (0.4mA) controls a much
configuration w ith a 32MHz oscillator crystal larger collector current (80mA).
and a little impedance network adapter for the The current lim iting resistor fo r the four
integrated PCB antenna. The switching on/off LEDs is derived from the equation: 3V = R2 x
control of the four high-brightness, red LEDs Ic + 2V + 0.2, where Ic is the current needed
takes place through logic line P0.17 connected (80mA), 2V is the nominal forw ard voltage fo r
through resistor R1 at the base of transistor the red LED, and 0.2 is the collector-em itter
QI. The NPN transistor acts as a switch w ith an saturation voltage. I get a resistor value of
open-collector output and the em itter term inal 10Q. I used four 5mm diffused, flat-top, red
connected directly to ground. LEDs w ith high lum inosity (8,000mcd), and
When GPIO pin P0.17 is high, Q I is fully ON a wide viewing angle of 120 degrees. This
(Saturation Region). To find the m inim um base means th a t the light is more diffused and not
current required to turn on the tran sisto r fo r so direct, reducing glare fo r other bike riders
a load th a t requires 80mA (four LEDs x 20mA), and m otor vehicle drivers.

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Figure 2
The CtrlANT+ schematic
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

For a simple, small assembly, I created

a rectangular PCB with dimensions 50mm
x 32mm (Figu re 3). The four red LEDs are
positioned at the four corners of the rectangle
to increase its visibility. In my previous
projects I used standard boxes, but this time
I designed a custom box using Sketchllp
software. You can make it yourself with the
BikeLightBox.stl file and a 3D printer. For
the best result, the cover must be made of
transparent resin; otherwise, you would have
to drill holes in the cover corresponding to the
locations of the LEDs on the board.
It is necessary to add a battery holder for
two 1.5V AAA batteries— connect the positive
to the pad marked with the Vc c label and the
negative to the one marked with the GND
Figure 3
label. Then insert the batteries and board into
The assembled project. The sequence of component insertion into the custom-made box (from right to
the box, fix the board with two screws, and
left) is: battery holder, PCB with LEDs in each of the four corners, screws (shown as blue ovals) to secure
the circuit board to the box, and transparent resin cover.
close it with the transparent resin cover. The
assembly sequence is in Figure 3. The board
also includes a connection strip for the JTAG
bus (SWCLK, SWDI0, GND, and Vc c ) to update
the firmware.
CtrlANT+ PCB A ssem bly: Figure 4 is the
top and bottom copper layer of the PCB. It's
a small card with a simple scheme to connect
the nRF52832 breakout board to the boundary
components. On the right and left sides of the
board there are two 2mm holes to fix the circuit
into the box. Assembly takes place by first
soldering the LEDs, resistors, and transistor
to the top of the board, then soldering the
nRF52832 module to the bottom of the board.
Figure 5 shows the assembled prototype board,
including the pinout of the JTAG connector
Figure 4 required for the firmware update.
The CtrlANT+ PCB circuitry details.

THE FIRMWARE
The firm ware development is based on
SDK version 16 for the nRF52 SoC family and
the S212 SoftDevice, both provided by Nordic
Semiconductor. The S212 SoftDevice contains
a highly flexible ANT+ protocol stack that
supports all the features needed to build a
communication network for ANT+ compliant
devices.
I'll now describe the data structure of the
Controls Device Profile, so you can compare it
with the Environment Profile presented in my last
Figure 5 article (Circuit Cellar #377, December, 2021) [1].
The assembled prototype board top (left) and bottom (right).
Three key points of the firmware are: 1) the
logical structure of Data Page 16, which contains
Additional materials from the author are available at: the identification code of the command to be
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials executed (light on/off); 2) the decoding function
that extracts the command ID from the ANT+
References [1] to [3] as marked in the article can be found there.
message payload; and 3) the events handler
RESOURCES that executes a specific procedure, depending
Garmin | www.garmin.com on the command ID received.
To avoid compilation errors, allow me
Nordic Semiconductor | www.nordicsemi.com to briefly introduce the Network Key and
Sketchup | www.sketchup.com the integration of SoftDevice S212. After

SoftDevice download and before compiling the
firm ware code, you have to copy the headers
file (/components/softdevice/s212/headers) to
your SDK Install Folder, and uncomment the
ant_license_key in the file nrf_sdm.h. When
you get your network key or the public one,
you have to insert it into the defines of the file
ant_key_manager_config.h. These values are
fundamental, and will be used during channel
and profile initialization.
This profile, like the Environment Profile,
isn't included in the nRF52 SDK. I started with
the profile presented in the previous article,
adding support for the data page requests
that might be sent from the remote control to
the CtrlANT+, and then handled how it should
respond to these requests.
As I discussed in the section, the main data
pages are Data Page 7 and Data Page 16. Each
page is always implemented in the same way,
by defining a data structure containing the
page values and the initialization constants
for the default values, and two functions—one
for encoding, and one for decoding. Listin g 1
is a summary of the main instructions used
for Data Page 16 development.
The initial struct follows the fields sequence
in Table 2. In the decoding function, the
pointer to the data buffer and the pointer to
the data page are passed as input parameters.
This function extracts the payload data of the
ANT+ message received. In Listin g 1 you can
see the instructions of the decoding function.
First, the payload is transferred to the data
page logical structure (ant_ctrl_page_data_
layout), so all fields are valued and formatted
correctly (INSTRUCTION 1). Then the numeric
ID of the received command is extracted
by accessing the field referenced from the
p_incoming_data pointer (INSTRUCTION 2).
Finally, the data page field referenced by
the p_page_data pointer is updated with the
received command ID (INSTRUCTION 3).
Listin g 2 contains the events handler
instructions. It updates the status of the
broadcasted Data Page 7, and executes the
instructions for switching the light on and off.
The events handler consists of two nested
switch statements. The first establishes the
data page to be updated, and the second
discriminates the command received from
the remote control. Let's focus our attention
on the latter.
The two command IDs related to
"Recording" and "Take a Photo" allow you to
turn on the light in two alternate ways provided
by the GPS graphical interface. The instructions
executed are the same. The status of the main
Data Page 7 is updated, bringing it to the value
7 (Recording: the video device is recording;
the light is ON). The Time Progressed field is
updated; it indicates the number of seconds
circuitcellar.com
elapsed in the recording mode (Light ON).
The same broadcast transmission frequency
is used (4Hz)—an increase of 1 second every
four events. Therefore, a counter called "tot"
is incremented at each event. As soon as
it reaches the value 4, the m _ a n t _ c t r l.
p a g e _ 7 .tim e _ p r o g variable is updated.
Finally, GPIO line P0.17 goes to a high logic
level to polarize the transistor base and turn on
the light for 250ms. Then it goes to a low logic
level for another 250ms. And again, it turns the
light on for 250ms and off for another 250ms.
In this way, the light flashes with a frequency
equal to half the broadcast frequency (4/2 =
2MHz), or two times per second.
The instructions relating to Stop determine
the light switching off. The function updates
the main Data Page 7 status, bringing it to
the value 3 (Stop: the video device is stopped;
the light is OFF). The status change also
determines the position update of the central
button on the GPS handheld interface. In
Recording, it moves upwards, and in Stop, it
typedef s t r u c t !
u in t l6 _ t s e ria lN R ; //REMOTE CONTROL SERIAL NUMBER
u in t8 _ t sequence; //COMMAND SEQUENCE NUMBER
u in t8 _ t r e s l; //RESERVED
u in t8 _ t res2; //RESERVED
u in t8 _ t v o l_ in c ; / / INCREASE/DECREASE VOLUME IN %
u in t8 _ t command; //COMMAND ID
} a n t_ c trl_ p a g e !6 _ d a ta _ t;
# define DEFAULT_ANT_CTRL_PAGE16()
(a n t_ c trl_ p a g e l6 _ d a ta _ t)
.s e r ia lN R = 65535,
.sequence = 0,
. r e s l = 255,
. res2 = 255,
.v o l_ in c = 255,
.command = 0
void an t_ ctrl_ page_ 1 6 _ en co de(u in t8 _ t ★ p _ p a g e _ b u ffe r, ant_
c trl_ p a g e l6 _ d a ta _ t const * p_page_data);
void an t_ ctrl_ page_ 1 6 _ deco de(u in t8 _ t const * p _ p a g e _ b u ffe r,
a n t_ ctrl_ p a g e !6 _ d a ta _ t * p_page_data);
void an t_ ctrl_ page_ 1 6 _ deco de(u in t8 _ t const * p _ p a g e _ b u ffe r,
a n t_ ctrl_ p a g e !6 _ d a ta _ t * p_page_data)
a n t_ c trl_ p a g e l6 _ d a ta _ la y o u t_ t const * p_incoming_data =
( a n t_ c trl_ p a g e l6 _ d a ta _ la y o u t_ t * )p _ p a g e _ b u ffe r; //INSTRUCTION
1
u in t8 _ t comando = ( u in t 8 _ t ) ( p_incoming_data->command);
/ / e x t r a c t in g command from remote c o n tro l //INSTRUCTION 2
p_page_data->command = comando; //INSTRUCTION 3
Listing 1
Main Data Page 16 structure and decoding
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

moves dow nw ards. Subsequently, GPIO line

void ant_ctrl_evt_handler(ant_ctrl_profi1e_t * p_profile, P0.17 goes to a low logic level, bringing the
ant_ctrl_evt_t event)
base current of the tra n sisto r to 0 and turning
{
off the fou r LEDs.
switch (event)

case ANT_CTRL_PAGE_7_UPDATED: CTRLANT+ TESTING

I tested the CtrlANTH- circu it w ith a Garm in
switch (m_ant_ctr1.page_16.command) 64st GPS navigator. A fte r the batteries have
been connected, we pair our device w ith the
case 147: //Recording navigator. To do this, go to the Settings menu,
case 148: //Photo and select "VIRB Remote item ." A fte r a few
seconds of searching, the status w ill sw itch to
m_ant_ctrl.page_7.state = 7;
"Connected." A form w ith tw o buttons will be
tot++;
displayed— "R e co rd " and "Take a Photo."
if (tot>=4) {tot=0;m_ant_ctrl.page_7.time_prog = m_ant
Ctrl.page_7.time_prog + 1;} Let's go to the first button that turns blue.
nrf_gpi o_pi n_toggl e(LIGHT); If we press the Enter key, it w ill sh ift down,
a seconds counter will appear in the upper
break; right corner, and the sm all rectangle w ill sta rt
case 131: //Stop flashing. The light turns on. If we press Enter
again, the button w ill sh ift down and the light
m_ant_ctrl.page_7.state = 3; will turn off.
nrf_gpio_pi n_clear(LIGHT); If we move to the "Take a Photo" button
and press Enter, the button will sh ift up, and
break;
the seconds counter will be displayed again.
Figure 6 is the instructions sequence through
break; the GPS screens.
case ANT_CTRL_PAGE_16_UPDATED: /* fall through */
case ANT_CTRL_PAGE_80_UPDATED: /* fall through */ CONCLUSION AND FUTURE
case ANT_CTRL_PAGE_81_UPDATED: /* fall through */ EXPANSIONS
Once again, the ANT+ protocol has proved
default: useful for implementing a sport device—
break; specifically, integrating it with a commercial
device such as a handheld GPS. This project can be
}
compared with the previous one (a multipurpose
sports-wearable device) [1], to understand how
Listing 2
the ANT+ device profile development takes
CtrlANT+ Events handler instructions
place. The template can be used as a basis for
the development of generic control profiles or to
experiment with other profiles.
Parts List
The source code may be useful in the future
Cl,C2,Cll,C12=22pF cap Xl=32MHz crystal
for experiments on MCUs even richer in hardware
C3=0.8pF cap X2=32.768KHz
resources, such as the popular nRF52840, or to
C4,C5,C8,C9=100nF cap Ll=3.9nH ind
try out some new features made available by the
C10=1.0uF cap L2=10uH ind
Nordic Semiconductor SDK.
Cll,C12=22pF L3=15nH ind
In the files fo r this project, in addition to
C13=Not Connected cap Dl,D2,D3,D4=5mm ultra bright red led
the source code and schem atic, you'll find the
C14,C15=12pF cap BTl=3.0v battery 2xAAA
SketchUp box m odel that can you can
C6,C7=100pF cap Ul=nRF52832-QFAA
reproduce w ith a 3D printer. For now, I hope
R1=4.7KQ res Q1=BC547 NPN transistor
this circu it is useful to those w ho w ant to
R2=10Q res P l=4pin header
experience a device system integration on
ANT+. See you in my next article!

Figure 6
CtrlANT+ and GPSMAP 64st screens
Take Photo
for pairing and turning the LEDs on
I Mirimj KiMtiy - I irjhl Of I ligh t ON 1 Light ON 2
and off
The most critical conversations take place here. From concept to realization.
Th rou g h d iscu ssio n s on the latest breakthroughs in im plem en tation to an
exploration o f innovation. A cro ss policy, privacy and data m anagem ent,
safety and security, and em erging tech n o lo g ies. Beyond 5G to edge
com pu tin g. Your path to our shared a u to n o m o u s future starts at
X P O N E N T IA L . T h e w orld's o n ly uncrew ed system s event unites th e entire
industry — from end users to regulators — to build co n cre te plans o f action
XPONENTIAL
through transparent collaboration.
MAY8-11,2023 I EDUCATION
MAY9-11,2023 I EXHIBITS
DENVER
Plan your way forward. REGISTER NOW. xponential.org
12 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Autonomous Beach Cleaning

Robot
S
A High-Level
E
R
U
T
A
Overview
E
F

FIGURE 1
By CAD model of the robot (3' x 3 1)
Angela Loh

Currently, 51 trillion microplastics litter our bodies of water and can be found in our food and
drinking water. They're a hazard to our health and ecosystem, but at less than 5mm in size,
they're difficult to spot. The Cornell Nexus robot is intended to address the microplastics
problem on beaches by autonomously collecting and disposing of these plastics.

he Cornell Nexus team aim s to
clean up m icroplastics from beach
shores to the depths of the ocean.
Nexus' current project is focused
on building an autonomous robot that will
traverse beaches and filter out m icroplastics
from beach shores. There are two main entities
to the project: the robot and its base station.
The robot's main m ission is to traverse the
beach and clean up the m icroplastics from the
beach, and it contains a drivetrain, a filtration
system, an electronics box, a battery, and a
FIGURE 2
CAD Model of the base station's
preliminary design
plastic bucket at the back of the robot to store
the collected trash. Figure 1 is a CAD model
of the robot's basic architecture.
The base station serves as both the
charging dock for the robot and the place
for the robot to em pty its collected plastics
(Figure 2). It contains solar panels, a wind
turbine, a charge controller, a battery
pack, and charging tabs. While the robot
is traversing the beach and filtering out
m icroplastics from the sand, it makes its way
back to the base station under two cases.
First, the robot will check the am ount of
charge its battery pack has to guarantee the
robot will be able to return to its base station
from its current location. The further the
robot is from the base station, the higher this
charge threshold will be. Second, the robot
will check if its bucket is full using four sets of
break-beam transm itter and receiver sensors
placed around the top of the bucket. When
the m ajority of these break-beam sensors
detect an object, the bucket is full. If either
the bucket is full or the robot needs charging,
the robot will return to its base station.
As I w rite this, our team is alm ost finished
assem bling the robot. In the project's next
phase, we will finalize the base station
assem bly and robustly test the robot.
 circuitcellar.com

ROBOT ELECTRICAL SENSOR SYSTEM

The main processor for the robot is the
Raspberry Pi 4B, which serves as the brains for
the system to which all the electrical components
are connected. The Pi runs all the systems' main
algorithms, which I'll describe in more detail in
the software architecture section.
Figure 3 is the signal architecture diagram
for the robot. On the left side are all of the sensors
that directly interface with the robot's external
environment, which includes the 915MHz 3DR
radio transceivers, JSN SR04T sonar sensors,
a nine degrees of freedom (9DOF) LSM9DS1
Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and the NEO-
M9N Global Positioning System (GPS).
For the robot's localization, our system
uses data from the GPS and IMU. We run a
script using our GPS data retrieval function to
parse through the National Marine Electronics FIGURE 3
Association (NMEA) data that the GPS sensor system uses the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) Robot's signal architecture
receives for latitude and longitude data values. to filter out the noise, or "fuse" the readings
Because the GPS has a three-meter noise together, to provide an accurate understanding
radius, the longitude and latitude data will only of where the robot is and how it's oriented.
provide an estimate of the robot's location. For the communication aspect of our robot,
To gather more detail and inform ation we want to ensure that the robot can send data
about the robot's velocity and orientation, we to and receive data from a separate computer,
use the IMU. Our IMU consists of a gyroscope, which runs the graphic user interface (GUI).
magnetometer, and accelerometer. These We use 915MHz radio frequency transceivers to
all measure data in the X, Y, and Z axes and do this by having both modules transm it and
are able to accurately measure sm all-scale receive data serially. The computer running the
changes in the robot's motions. GUI will have one transceiver, and the robot
Because the IMU has an initial error offset, will have the other. Every few seconds our
we need to calibrate it upon use. But simply robot will send packets of data that contain
calibrating the IMU is not enough to gain information—such as the robot's battery level,
accurate readings of our system. The IMU will location, velocity, orientation, bucket fill level,
also accumulate small increments of error. and so on—to our computer, which will project
Since both the IMU and the GPS have some this information on the GUI (Figure 4).
degree of error that we must account for in The GUI allows our team to easily m onitor
predicting the localization of our robot, our the robot's status. If we detect that something

FIGURE 4
The GUI is updated with data
transmitted via our radio
transceivers.
14 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
FIGURE 5
Three frames from the obstacle
avoidance simulation. (The full
simulation available on the article
materials webpage.)
S
E corruption. So, we devised an algorithm in
R
U which our system takes the most frequently
T
A
E
F appearing values for each information field
FIGURE 6
April tag readings of the robot
position at three points in the
docking process. (The tag readings
throughout the docking process on
the article materials webpage.)
about the robot seems suspicious, we can use
the GUI to tell it to return to the base station
or halt movement. Our system must take
into account the integrity of the data when
a serial package is received, on both the GUI
and robot end, due to bit flips and package
every few seconds, under the assumption that
the most frequently received values are the
most reliable and are unaffected by random
bit-flips.
The five sonar sensors for our robot
are used for the robot's obstacle avoidance
algorithm, which is based on a class of
motion planning algorithms known as "bug
algorithms." The sonar sensors work by
emitting sound waves at a high frequency
and timing how long it takes to receive the
reflected sound wave back. Since sound
waves travel at 344 meters per second (at
20°C), we can calculate the distance, within
an appropriate range, from the sensor to the
obstacle that reflects the sound wave. Two
sonar sensors are placed on both the left
and right sides of the robot's frame, and one
is placed at the front. As the robot moves
across the beach filtering plastic particles,
its obstacle avoidance algorithm kicks in
whenever a nearby obstacle is detected by
the sonar sensors. If an obstacle is detected,
the robot traces the borders of the obstacle
at some distance and move in a straight line
toward a new goal coordinate (Figure 5). Once
the obstacle is no longer detected, the robot
resumes its original traversal algorithm.
Our camera system is currently used
in the robot's docking algorithm when
it approaches the base station, and will
eventually be integrated into the obstacle
avoidance algorithm as well. The robot must
dock precisely, to ensure that its charging tabs
are aligned with the base stations' charging
tabs. When the tabs are aligned and the
robot is properly docked, the base station's
battery back, which is connected to the solar
panels and wind turbine system, will begin
discharging to charge the robot's battery
pack. The bucket's knobs on the robot's sides
also interface with sockets on the base station
to mechanically lift the bucket and dump the
collected microplastics into a larger bucket on
the base station.
To dock the robot with the precision
necessary to align both systems' mechanical
and electrical components, we use an April
tag detection algorithm that uses captured
images of the April tags on the base station to
compute the robot's orientation with respect
to these tags. Based on the captured frames,
the algorithm calculates the estimated
 circuitcellar.com

position of the robot, as well as how much

more it needs to move or rotate in a specific
direction to dock correctly (Figure 6).
Lastly, connected to the Raspberry Pi
are three motor controllers, which regulate
the voltage levels applied to the connected
motors using pulse-width modulation (PWM).
A PWM square wave is a type of digital signal
that alternates between a high and low
voltage state at a specific frequency, and
the average of these two signal states is the
voltage that gets applied to the motor. Two
of the three motor controllers are allocated
to controlling the 12V motors which drive the
robot's wheels.
The third controls a 12V motor for
the filtration system's crank and slider
mechanism that shakes a vibrating screen,
which is the basis of the robot's microplastics
filtration mechanism. The robot shakes and
tosses sand it scoops up to filter out pieces
of plastic. The collected plastics are tossed FIGURE 7
into a bucket at the back of the robot, while PCB containing the robot's main localization sensors
the sand falls through the screen, back onto
the beach. A later article in the series will
provide an in-depth breakdown of the robot's
filtration system.
The controllers used to control the front
and back wheel motors are two-channeled
H-bridge MDD20A motor drivers, which means
that one controller can monitor two motors.
We decided to use one motor per wheel for
better steering and to allow for sharper
turns when the robot is operating on sand.
The motors also have encoders, which allow
us to calculate the angular positioning for
each motor shaft based on their revolutions.
We are currently working on integrating the
encoder data into our systems' PID controller
(Figure 7).

POWER ARCHITECTURE
Figure 8 is a power architecture diagram
for our base station and robot. For the base
station, our system uses 100W solar panels
and a wind turbine to generate power. The
captured solar and wind energy is stored
in the base station battery pack, which
discharges to the robot's battery pack when
the robot docks at the base station. We chose
solar panels since they are a popular method
of generating electricity, but we included the
wind turbines to take advantage of the windy
beach environment and add more power
generation sources to our system.
Our team is currently working on how to
keep the base station's and robot's charging
tabs protected from the surrounding saline
environment, as salt can erode the metal
tabs and result in less efficient charging.
When the tabs are aligned, a charge regulator
FIGURE 8
ensures that the robot draws the appropriate Base station and robot power architecture diagram
16 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

m is s io n < p y We call this softw are layout our "M issio n "
architecture.
The M ission FSM has different phases that
correspond to the state of the robot (Figure 9).
In order to traverse an area bounded by a
given latitude and longitude, we set up a
S
E grid divided into "nodes," or coordinates.
R
U As the robot visits each o f these nodes, the
T
A
E rem aining nodes to visit are organized into
F
an ordered list of w aypoints. There are
several w ays in w hich the robot can traverse
these w aypoints— fo r exam ple, "law nm ow er,"
"law nm ow er_b," and "sp iral." Or, rather than
traversing such a set path o f nodes, the
robot may also be set to Roomba mode (and,
am ount of current. Our battery pack also eventually, a manual mode). The GUI receives
has a built-in battery m anagem ent system latitude and longitude bounds and creates a
(BMS), w hich ensures that the battery is corresponding plot o f the robot's path it w ill
charged appropriately. Our robot's battery take to filter the beach sand.
pack is 12.8V, lOOA-h, and 1280W-h. We use The setup phase contains all o f the sensor
a buck converter to convert the voltage levels and circu it com ponent checks, w hich include
to those required by the m otor controller, checking that:
Raspberry Pi 4, and pow er monitor. The power
m onitor is used to obtain the battery's charge • the GPS and IMU are on, and that data is
inform ation, so we know how much charge being collected
rem ains in the battery. The battery pack • the radio m odules connected to both the
directly pow ers the robot's m otor controllers, robot R aspberry Pi and GUI com puter can
w hich regulate the voltage that the attached tra n sm it data to each other successfully
m otors receive. The system 's rem aining • and the m otor controllers w ork and can
sensors are pow er by the Pi. com m and the m otors to move properly.

SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE We need to eventually add setup checks

The robot's core so ftw are in frastru ctu re is fo r the cam era module, the sonar sensor, the
m odeled a fte r a finite-state m achine (FSM). battery level, and so on.
As Figure 9 indicates, the robot can enter
the Traversal phase from the Setup phase, the
Docking phase, or the Avoid_Obstacle phase.
When the robot enters the Traversal phase
from the Setup phase, the robot will create an
outline o f w here it can move on the beach by
pulling data from a map o f the beach, as well
as from tide charts to gauge the w ater level
at a given tim e. Since at this point the robot
cannot enter w ater yet, the traversal areas
m ust be lim ited to dry sand. A fte r calculating
the boundaries, the robot creates a list of
unvisited nodes w ithin those boundaries to
w hich it w ill then travel.
If the robot detects an obstacle w ith its
cam era or sonar sensors w hile m oving, it
enters the Avoid_Obstacle phase, in w hich the
robot follow s the previously discussed bug
algorithm . When the im m ediate obstacles
FIGURE io
are avoided and no fu rth e r obstacles are
Final enclosed robot CAD model
detected, the robot returns to the Traversal
phase, resum ing its course to the next
Additional materials from the author are available at: unvisited node on its list. Every few seconds,
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials the robot's main control loop polls the battery
level and checks if the break-beam sensors
RESOURCES detect that the m icroplastics collection bucket
Cornell Nexus | cornellnexus.com is full. If the battery is at a given threshold
or if the bucket is full, the robot enters the
Raspberry Pi | www.raspberrypi.org
Return phase, in which the robot calculates
and then follows the shortest path back to the
base station.
When the robot is close enough to the base
station for its cam eras to detect the April
tags, it enters the Docking phase. This phase
includes recharging the robot's battery pack
and em ptying its collected plastics into the
larger base station bucket. When both tasks
are finished, the robot either re-enters the
Traversal phase, beginning where it left off,
or it enters the Completion phase, which it
enters if the robot has visited all its waypoints
and the beach has been cleaned.
CONCLUSION & NEXT STEPS
This was a high-level overview of the
Nexus autonom ous beach robot (Figure 10).
In the future we'll provide a closer look at
specific subsystem s in the project, including
an in-depth exam ination of the robot's
autonom ous traversal algorithm s that were
briefly covered in this issue. We'll also discuss
our system's proportional-integral-derivative
(PID) controller, extended Kalman filter
(EKF), com puter vision algorithm s, obstacle
avoidance algorithm s, testing environm ents,
simulated tests, and real-life tests that involve
hardware. We'll also cover the m echanical
and electrical design of the robot's drivetrain,
the robot's filtration system, and the base
station's design. We'll explain why we chose
our system's particular components, the
robot's different printed circuit boards (PCBs),
its battery pack charge cycle and lifespan, and
the predicted am ount of plastics the filtration
m echanism will capture. Finally, we ll provide
details on electrical power calculations and
design choices for our base station, and break
down the m echanics of how the robot docks,
dum ps its plastics, and charges.
The Cornell Nexus m ission is to remove
m icroplastics from our beaches and oceans.
Our team will continue to build, iterate, and
invent new designs of systems to com bat the
w orld's m icroplastics problem. Looking
forward, we plan to build a robot that will
clean m icroplastics from the ocean. We strive
to engineer solutions that protect and restore
ecosystem s affected by m icroplastics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Loh is the co-founder of Cornell Nexus, a project team at Cornell
University engineering new solutions to the problem of water pollution. She
graduated in December 2022, having studied Computer Science and Electrical
Computer Engineering.
 FEATURES 18

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20 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

extensive learning guides for all the hardware the hardware on the Maker board. You can
modules they sell. There is a fantastic guide copy and paste the code fragments from this
for the compass module we are using in this demo into your own code.
project [5]. Normally, the Maker Pi's filesystem is
The guide shows you how to download read-only for CircuitPython, but read-write
the various CircuitPython modules for the for your computer. This allows you to update
S
E compass and drop them in the "lib" folder on the code from your computer. But your code
R
U
T the Maker Pi disk. I made it even easier for running on the Maker Pi can't write to the
A
E
F
you: Just download the files for this project filesystem. My "boot.py" contains a script
from their GitHub repository, and drag my to temporarily flip these permissions so
"lib" folder to your Maker Pi [6]. your code can create data files. At power-
Let's test the compass by recording up, CircuitPython runs "boot.py." If you are
compass readings while we spin the robot in holding BP21 down during power-up, the
place slowly for thirty seconds. Copy my "spin, script makes the filesystem writeable by your
py" and "boot.py," from the aforementioned code. Otherwise, the filesystem is writeable
GitHub files, to the root of your Maker Pi. by your computer over USB. Once "boot.py"
Rename "spin.py" to "code.py," which is the finishes, CircuitPython runs your "code.py."
name of the script CircuitPython runs when it Listing 1 has the important parts of "spin,
starts up. Be sure to copy the original "code, py": my code after all the copied and pasted
py" from the Maker Pi to your computer. It initializations. The code starts the motors
contains a demo program that exercises all spinning in opposite directions at half speed.
Then it takes compass readings every tenth
of a second for 30 seconds. Finally, the code
# From “spin.py” (runs on robot)
turns the motors off and writes the readings
to a JSON format text file named "data.json."
pixelsEO] = (80,0,0) # Red LED ... we are recording
Plug the USB cable into the Maker board and
motorl.throttle = 0.5 # Forward half-speed copy this file to your computer.
motor2.throttle = -0.5 # Backward half-speed The last part of Listing 1 is a program you
run on your computer. It loads the "data.json"
data = [] text file and plots the data in an interactive 3D
for _ in range(300): # 30 seconds of data graph. You can drag the mouse around to look
mag_x, mag_y, mag_z = sensor.magnetic # Read the data at the data from different angles. That's the
data.append([mag_x, mag_y, mag_z]) complete program in Listing 1—just 14 lines of
time.sleep(O.l) # Tenth of a second
code. It uses the python package "matplotlib,"
motorl.throttle = None # None to spin freely (no power) which you will need to "pip install" on your
motor2.throttle = None computer using the command in the comment
on the first line. Before reading on, what do
with open(‘data.json’,’w ’) as f: you expect the data to look like?
json.dump(data,f) # Write the data as JSON The compass module reads a magnetic
source (in our case, the north magnetic pole)
pixelsfO] = (0,80,0) # Green LED ... we are done as a point in 3D space, with the sensor at the
origin. The distance from the origin to the
point is the magnitude of the magnetic source
in gauss. If we spin the compass in the air
# From “plot.py” (runs on PC)
around all three axes, we expect the graph
# py -m pip install matplotlib to be a perfect sphere centered on the origin.
import matplotlib.pyplot as pit But our robot only spins on two axes, so our
from load_data import load_data graph should be a circle centered on the
origin. Each point on this graph is the north
x,y,z = load_data(‘data.json’) magnetic pole as it spins around our robot.
Anyway, that's what we want. But what we
fig = plt.fi gure() actually see is the red curve in Figure 3—a
ax = pit.axes(projection^3d’,xlabel=’X’,ylabel=’Y ’,zlabel=’Z’) squished circle (an ellipse) centered well away
from the origin. What's going on here?
ax.scatter3D(0,0,0,c=’blue’,s=100) # The origin
ax.scatter3D(x,y,z,c=’blue’,s=5) # The data
HARD AND SOFT IRON
plt.show() Compass readings are affected by
magnets (obviously). They are also affected
by any nearby iron. Magnetic sources are
LISTING 1
The upper snippet of code spins the robot at half speed, collects 30 seconds of magnetic data, and writes
called "hard iron" while passive iron sources
the samples to a text file on the robot's filesystem. The lower snippet of code reads the data from the are called "soft iron." Each type of iron affects
robot's filesystem and generates an interactive 3D plot on your computer. compass readings in a different way.
 circuitcellar.com

Iron sources can be attached to the that red ellipse hovering out in space into the
compass (the robot). The robot's electric black circle centered on the origin.
motors have magnets in them. Other parts A precise correction would involve a lot
like screws, header pins, and standoff posts of math and matrix multiplications. Fierce
often contain ferrous metal. Iron sources can Electronics has a useful introductory guide
also be part of the environment: metal poles, on this subject [8]. Since we must apply
cars, buildings, and even your cell phone. this corrective math every time we read
Hard iron attached to the robot shifts the the compass, we need the process to be as
compass readings away from the origin. That's computationally cheap as possible. I make
why the red curve in Figure 3 is translated away some simplifying assumptions in my code
from (0,0,0). Soft iron attached to the robot that produce fast, if less precise, corrections.
warps the readings into an ellipse. That's why The first assumption I make is that the
the red and blue points in Figure 3 don't form a compass Z value is always 0. At my latitude
circle. I learned a lot about iron and compasses and with my robot's iron signature, the Z
over the course of this project. I've included values stay relatively close to zero degrees. So,
a link to an informative video in the Articles my code completely ignores the Z coordinate,
Materials webpage on Circuit Cellar [7]. reducing the math to two dimensions.
The iron attached to the robot produces The hard iron correction is straightforward.
a constant, fixed effect on the compass The "calibrate.py" script reads a data set from
readings. Your robot will be different from the spinning-robot output and calculates the
mine, and each robot has its own unique iron X and Y offsets to apply to every data point.
signature. In the next section, we will calculate
a set of correction factors for the robot and
apply them to every compass reading.
How precisely does iron in the environment
affect the compass readings? Well, since we
have this cool, spinning-compass robot, let's
do some scientific experiments with it. We'll
use the readings we just took as the baseline
control. Next, let's repeat the spinning/
sampling with a magnet near the robot. Then
let's replace the magnet with a piece of iron
and repeat the sampling. Finally, let's plot all
three data sets on a 3D graph to compare.
The results of this experiment are in
Figure 4. The control data is plotted in black—
the squished circle away from the origin (the
solid black dot). The blue data was produced by
the piece of iron near the robot. I used a one-
foot-long iron tube standing vertically near the FIGURE 3

robot. You can see its heavy distortion along The compass module must be calibrated to correct for magnets and iron fixed to the robot. The calibration
the Z-axis. The red data set was produced by process yields a "hard iron" offset factor that centers the readings around the origin (the blue curve). The
the magnet placed near the robot. For over "soft iron" correction yields a scaling factor that turns the ellipse into a circle (the black curve).

half of the graph, the compass tracks the north

magnetic pole, but when the front of the robot
passes near the magnet, the readings go awry.
What other experiments can you think of?
Perhaps try driving the robot straight past
a piece of iron and observe how the north
magnetic pole shifts in the graph. Then repeat
this experiment with a magnet, and again with
your cell phone.

COMPASS CALIBRATION
Environmental iron is problematic; let's
agree to drive our robots in ferrous-free
areas! But we can't get away from the hard
and soft iron attached to our robots. We can
compensate for those effects, however. The
FIGURE 4
goal is to apply corrections to the (x,y,z)
This 3D plot shows how a magnet and a piece of iron skew the magnetic readings as the robot spins in
values every time we read the compass place. The black circle shows the normal readings with no interference. The blue curve shows the effects
module. In Figure 3, we want to transform of an iron bar placed near the robot. The red curve shows the effects of a magnet placed near the robot.
22 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

The code finds the minimum and maximum The calculated offsets are shown in the lower
value on each axis, subtracts the min from right corner of the figure.
max, and divides that difference by two. This For the soft iron correction, I used
offset value is added to each point to recenter the "scale bias" pseudocode from Mika
the data set on the origin. Tuupola's online article "How to Calibrate a
The red curve in Figure 3 shows the Magnetometer" [9]. This technique uses the
S
E uncorrected data set from my robot. The blue distance values calculated for the hard iron
R
U curve is the data after applying the offsets to correction. We compute an average of the
T
A
E each point and setting all Z coordinates to 0. distances calculated for the X and Y axes
F
and divide each individual distance by that
# From “ d r iv e . p y ” average. The result is a scaling factor along
each axis. We multiply the centered X and Y
d e f g e t_ c u r re n t_ h e a d in g ( ): values by these scaling factors.
# C lo ck w ise : 0=North, 90=east, 180=south, 270=west The black curve in Figure 3 shows the data
mag_x, mag_y, _ = se n so r.m a g n e t!c # Read the sensor after applying these offsets (hard iron) and
mag_x = (mag_x-OFFSET_X) * SCALE_X # Apply the iro n . . . scaling (soft iron). It is not a perfect circle,
mag_y = (mag_y-OFFSET_Y) ★ SCALE_Y # . . . c o r r e c t io n
but it is close enough for my purposes. And
r e t = math. atan2(mag_x, m ag_y)/m ath.pi*180 # Get angle
the offsets and scales are easy to apply to
r e t = 360 - r e t # Reverse so 90=EAST, 270=WEST
r e t = ( ret+FORWARD) % 360 # O ffs e t to forw a rd (180) each compass reading. You can see these
re tu rn r e t corrections in the "get_current_heading"
function in Listing 2. We'll look at that next.
d e f d r iv e _ t o ( h e a d in g , s e c s ) :
FULL = .75 DRIVING WITH THE COMPASS
heading = (heading % 360) # J u s t in case The "drive.py" program contains utility
hunds = secs*10 # 10 tim es a seconds
functions for driving the robot using the
w h ile hunds>0:
compass module. Listing 2 includes only three
cur = g e t_ c u r re n t_ h e a d in g ( ) # C u rre n t heading
d i f f = g e t_ h e a d in g _ d iffe r e n c e ( c u r ,h e a d in g ) important functions. See the complete "drive,
co r = d if f / 1 8 0 * 0.50 # 0:180 becomes 0:50% py" in the GitHub repository for this project [6].
co r = co r * FULL # 0 to 25% re d u c tio n The "get_current_heading" function reads
i f cor>0: # Turn CCW ( r ig h t motor slo w e r) the compass module and returns a heading
m o t o r 2 . t h r o t t le = FULL - a b s (c o r) # Reduced angle from 0 to 360 degrees. The function gets
m o t o r l. t h r o t t l e = FULL # L e ft motor f u l l the raw (x,y) values and applies the offset and
e ls e : # Turn CW ( l e f t motor slo w e r) scale corrections we discussed earlier, followed
m o to r2 . t h r o t t l e = FULL # R ig h t motor f u l l by a little high school trigonometry to get the
m o t o r l. t h r o t t le = FULL - a b s (c o r) # Reduced
angle from the (x,y) coordinates. Finally, the
t im e .s le e p ( O .lO ) # 10 tim es a second
function corrects the heading to the robot's
hunds -= 1
m o t o r l. t h r o t t l e = None idea of forward. Remember, the compass board
m otor2. t h r o t t l e = None is mounted with the negative Y axis pointing
forward, so we must subtract 180 degrees.
d e f d r iv e _ c w _ s q u a r e ( o fs ,le g _ tim e ) : The "drive_to" function in the middle of
tu rn _ to(sp eed= 0 .2 5 ,h eadin g = ofs+ 0 ) Listing 2 drives the robot on a given course
d riv e _ to (h e a d !n g = o fs + 0 , s e c s = le g _ tim e ) heading for the given number of seconds. The
turn _to(speed= 0.2 5,heading= ofs+ 90 )
code adjusts the speed of the motors ten times
d riv e _ to (h e a d !n g = o fs + 9 0 , s e c s = le g _ tim e )
a second to keep the robot on course. With each
tu rn _ to (sp eed= 0 .2 5 ,h ead!n g= ofs+ 1 8 0 )
d riv e _ to (h e a d in g = o fs + 1 8 0 , secs= leg_ tim e) iteration, the code reads the current heading
turn_to(speed= 0.25,head!ng= ofs+ 270) and compares it to the requested heading. One
d riv e _ to (h e a d in g = o fs + 2 7 0 , secs= leg_ tim e) motor always runs at top speed (75% here). The
other motor runs at a reduced speed based on
the heading difference. The larger the difference,
LISTING 2
the greater the speed reduction and the sharper
The "get_current_heading" function reads the compass module, applies the calibration parameters,
and returns a compass heading angle. The "drive_to" function drives the robot along a given compass
the turn toward the desired heading.
heading. The "drive_cw_square" function drives the robot around the floor in a large square. The "drive_cw_square" function at the
bottom of Listing 2 drives the robot clockwise
in a square. At the start of each leg, the code
Additional materials from the author are available at:
turns the robot to face the correct heading.
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials
Each leg is perpendicular to the last. Then
Reference [1] as marked in the article can be found there. the code calls the above "drive_to" function to
drive the robot forward along the current leg
RESOURCES of the square. After all four legs are complete,
Cytron | www.cytron.io the robot should be back where it started.
HiLetgo | www.hiletgo.com But, with a leg time of three seconds, my
Raspberry Pi | www.raspberrypi.com robot usually ended up within a couple of feet

from where it started. So, I experimented
with the robot at different speeds and on
different surfaces. I discovered a few things.
The motors are imperfect. At slow speeds,
my robot drifts to the right, but at higher
speeds, it drifts to the left. Wheel encoders
would help here by measuring the exact speed
each wheel is turning, and I did find a pair of
encoders that work with this robot chassis [10].
The motors also stall at slow speeds. On my
robot, a motor set below about 25% doesn't
move at all. The actual stall point depends on
the batteries' charge and the weight of the
robot.
The driving surface makes a huge
difference in robot performance. The wheels
on the robot slip and slide on my hardwood
floors at home. The robot works much better
on the carpet at my work office— but at the
office, there are metal support poles holding
up the roof. Once, my robot drove too close to
one and veered off course. That's the soft iron
effect I discussed earlier.
FUTURE FUN
This little robot chassis has so much
potential, but I've barely scratched the surface.
Next up, I want to add a set of wheel encoders.
That will help my code track a straight line. Of
course, my "drive_to_heading" function needs
NEW DH01000 Series
High Resolution Oscilloscopes
W IT H U ( t r e v i s i o n 111
12 Bit Resolution with Low Noise
for Signal Fidelity & Analysis
• 70-200 MHz Bandwidth
• 10.1" Touch Display
• 2 GSa/sec Sampling
• 2-4 Channels
• 500 pV/div Range
• Up to 100 MPts Mem
Starting @5 69 9
circuitcellar.com 23
a lot of improvement. Maybe I'll change it to a
PID control algorithm.
The Maker Pi board has six more Grove
connectors for other sensors and hardware.
I could add an I 2 C OLED display to show the
current heading while the robot moves. Or F
E
maybe I'll add a line-follower array from A
T
U
Seeed Studios. Of course, I'm only using half R
E
of the sensor I have; the compass module S
also has an accelerometer that I need to
experiment with.
This compass project might seem old-
school in our modern age of GPS. Adafruit
does make an I2 C GPS module I might
experiment with, but the cost of the tiny
module is more than my entire robot. And
never underestimate the power of a simple,
inexpensive compass. Knowing a general
direction and being able to travel in a straight
line might just be enough to get your robot
out of the woods.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Cantrell is an engineer for Vertiv. He also teaches for Professional and
Continuing Studies at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. When he isn't
working, you'll find him soldering on some fun loT project or digging around
in the ROMs of an old arcade game. Chris has written multiple articles for
Circuit Cellar over the years. You can email him at tophercantrell@gmail.com.
The Best Value in Test...
Just Got Better!
RIGOL
www.RIG0Lna.com/DH01000
24 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Smart Home Without the Cloud

Ultimate Control Using
S
E I finally replaced my aging X10 home
R
U
T
A
automation system by installing Wi-
E
F Fi-enabled switches, dimmers, and
plugs. Nearly all of today's commercial
smart home systems are cloud-based.
As a consequence, they have a variety
of privacy, security, and reliability
problems. I automated my house with
a Raspberry Pi single board computer
(SBC), writing software that gives me
ultimate control.

By
Dev Gualtieri

was an early adopter of X10 home
automation. I bought my first X10
devices at Radio Shack in the early 1980s.
X10 was able to send commands to light
switches and other devices by transmitting
data encoded as short 120kHz voltage signals
on the AC power line synchronized with the
zero-crossings of the AC voltage. Initially,
there was no X10 automation. There was just
a companion control box that injected the
proper data signals into the power lines when
buttons were pressed.
I was doing embedded systems work in the
same period, so I had the tools to roll my own
controller. An embedded system at that time
involved a Z80 microprocessor with its multitude
of peripheral chips, a few kilobytes of static RAM,
an ultraviolet erasable programmable read-only
memory chip (EPROM) burned with an assembly
language program, and a NiCad battery backup.
I needed to design and build my own 120kHz
power line transmitter to mimic the X10 signals.
Fortunately, some hobby magazines published
information about the X10 signal specifications,
and I was able to build a reliable X10 controller
using 1980's technology.
Eventually, an X10 controller became
available for true automation. This was the
CP290, which came with RS-232 connectivity
to a host computer that allowed one to upload
a schedule of timed events. I purchased a
CP290 and retired my Z80 controller. After
a time, another problem emerged when I
migrated from Windows computers to Linux.
The host software to update the CP290
event table was a DOS application, and I still
needed to keep a DOS computer for my home
automation updates.
In 2010, I designed and built my own
X10 controller using a PIC microcontroller. I
detailed this in a two-part article in Circuit
Cellar—"Build an X10 Controller (Part 1):
Circuit Design" in Circuit Cellar issue #240,
July 2010, and "Build an X10 Controller (Part
2): The Controller Program and Utility" in
Circuit Cellar issue #241, August 2010. In
the past few years, some of my X10 switches
have failed, usually a consequence of aging
electrolytic capacitors. Replacement X10
devices are hard to find, and they're usually
quite expensive. It was finally time for a
technology upgrade.
HOME AUTOMATION ON THE CLOUD
There is now a plethora of sm art home
devices from which to choose, including
some that respond to voice commands on
companion devices. Nearly all of these are
cloud-based; that is, an internet connection
is required for initial configuration and
subsequent operation. Such cloud-based
systems have a significant privacy problem,
since they send data about your lifestyle to
the cloud providers hosting these services.
There's also a security problem in connecting
your sm art home devices to the Internet.
Quite a few articles have been written about
hacking Internet-of-Things (loT) devices
to gain access to home networks and their
connected computers.
 circuitcellar.com

Another, more serious problem is device f ig u r e 1

This is the architecture of my smart
longevity. It's quite possible to have a company
home network. The centrally-located
"pull the plug" on your perfectly good hardware
Wi-Fi access point offers better Wi-Fi
by removing cloud software support. In one
coverage than my home router, and
instance a few years ago, a faulty software it acts as a buffer between these loT
update disabled many cloud-based smart devices and my home network. The
thermostats. Voice control might appeal to Star devices in my smart home system
Trek fans. But is that single feature incentive are model HS200 switches, model
enough to relinquish personal control of your HS220 dimmers, and model HS103
home automation system? plugs.
I checked out two open-source home
automation projectsthatbypassthecloud. These
are openHAB and Home Assistant. OpenHAB
even has its own OS image, openHABian, for
the Raspberry PI. Unfortunately, I didn't have
much luck getting either of these to work, and is provided with a power-over-ethernet (PoE)
in one case, some download links I needed injector that I didn't use, but which might be
didn't work. Both systems are far more useful in the future.
complex than what I needed, and I've found Raspberry Pi models are usually
that mission-specific software is much easier inexpensive, but they're presently hard to
to maintain—especially when I've written get because of high demand and supply­
the software myself. I eventually discovered chain issues for some of their components.
python-kasa, a Python API for TP-Link Kasa Fortunately, I had an unused Model 364-
Smart home devices [1]. in stock. But if you are stuck waiting for
Raspberry Pi availability, in the meantime you
KASA SMART HOME DEVICES can deploy your sm art home system on an
Kasa Smart home devices are popular and old Wi-Fi-enabled laptop or desktop computer
highly functional. The specific smart home with the Linux OS installed. I've seen some
devices I needed were single-pole switches, Raspberry Pi boards online priced at more
dimmers, and wall outlets. Unlike the X10 than five times the list price, which is absurd.
wall outlets, which were replacements for the I often use the stylish cases of obsolete
duplex outlets in a wall, the Kasa outlets are electronic devices to host my projects. Since
units that are plugged into an existing outlet. the smart home system needs just the
This is more convenient since they're easier to Raspberry Pi and no other components, I
relocate. I found the Kasa plugs to be a useful bought one of the many available plastic cases
device for my initial software development, with an integrated cooling fan (Figure 2).
because I didn't need to immediately dig into
my house's wiring. Note that the Kasa switches
and dimmers require a neutral (white) wire
to operate, and they have a green wire that
should be connected to the ground lead. This
is a problem when the only available wires in
your wall box are two black wires (one hot and
the other load) connected to a switch. An old
electrician once told me that his apprentice
training was simply, "If you touch the black
wire, you're dead!"
Kasa devices connect via low-band
(2.4GHz) Wi-Fi. This lower frequency might
aid penetration of the signals through walls.
While I could have connected the devices
directly to my home Wi-Fi network, I decided
against this. My ISP-provided, Wi-Fi-enabled
router sits in a corner of my cellar, and Wi­
Fi coverage to the other side of my house is
not that good. I decided to associate the Kasa
devices with a Wi-Fi access point in the center
of the house, connected by an Ethernet cable to
the router (Figure 1). This Wi-Fi access point,
FIGURE 2
also manufactured by TP-Link, is their Model
These are Raspberry Pi connections. The HDMI connector for the display and USB connections for the
TL-WA801N. It's quite inexpensive, as it's a
keyboard and mouse were used for development, and they aren't needed after deployment of the smart
low data rate 2.4GHz device. The access point
home system.
26 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

I m anually installed the R aspberry Pi OS A nice Apache2 Default Page should appear.
(64-bit), w ith desktop, onto a 16GB class To then check w hether your PHP installation
10 (high-speed) m icroSDHC card [2]. This is operational, create the follow ing sh o rt PHP
operating system is com patible w ith the script named info.php in the /var/w w w /htm l
Model 3B+ and the newer boards, including folder: < ?php p h p in fo O ; ?>.
the Model 4, the Model 400 w ith its integrated When you direct your web brow ser to
S
E com pact keyboard, and the Zero 2 W. One http://127.0.0.1/info.php, you'll get a very
R
U of the first things I do w ith any of my Linux long and very com plete sum m ary o f the PHP
T
A
E system s is to use w hatever package m anager installation. The python-kasa Python libra ry
F
is available to dow nload the Synaptic package is easily installed fo r the Pi user by opening
manager, w hich is my preferred package a term inal and issuing the com m and p ip
manager. Python is already installed, but you in s t a ll p y th o n -k a s a .
need to install the Apache2 w eb server and This allows execution of the many Kasa
PHP. I found that when I installed PHP using comm ands. You can get a sum m ary of the
Synaptic, Apache2, the Apache PHP Module, com m ands by executing Kasa --help in a
and the com m and line version o f PHP w ere term inal. This brings us to the im portant topic
autom atically installed. Alternatively, these of file perm issions in Linux. Usually, when you
can be installed from the com m and line using can't execute a program or w rite to a file, it's
the follow ing comm ands: because you aren't perm itted to do this as the
Pi user. However, there is an adm inistrative
sudo a p t-g e t u p d a te user named root who can do nearly anything
su d o a p t-g e t in s t a ll apache2 he or she wants, including changing file
sudo a p t-g e t i n s t a l l 1ibapache2-m od- php perm issions for others. For the sm art home
su d o a p t-g e t in s t a ll p h p 5 - c li applications that I've written, python-kasa
needs to accessed by the root user, also. This
There are m any online tutorials on how to is most easily done by opening a term inal as
accom plish such installs from the com m and root and repeating the install, as follows:
line. The Raspberry Pi OS installation also
includes Geany, a nice program editor that su d o -i
I used in my so ftw are developm ent. You < prom pt fo r your pi user p a s s w o rd >
can verify that the Apache2 web server p ip in s t a ll p y th o n -k a s a
is operational by typing its local address
(always 127.0.0.1) into the location box as You can then test your Kasa install as
http://127.0.0.1 on the Raspberry Pi Chrom ium root by executing Kasa — help before quitting
web browser. the term inal. At that point, all the required
system so ftw are has been dow nloaded, and
we can proceed to the sm art home devices
Turn Off Wi Fi and applications.

v* SmartPi fi t
DEVICE INITIALIZATION
Things are easier if you install your Kasa
switches and dim m ers one at a time. Be careful
FIGURE 3 here— switch off the circuit breaker to remove
Here is the Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi menu, power from the switch box, and follow the
showing the wireless networks that
wiring instructions included with each device.
are accessible after the installation of sc 7
For extra safety, I have a non-contact voltage
a Kasa device. The current connection
sesefcaSfo.-- ft t probe that verifies that there is no power to the
is to the Wi-Fi access point named
SmartPi. Connection would be set for ft 1 switch box before the removal of the old switch
the Kasa device for initialization. The and installation of the Kasa switch or dimmer.
TP LINK Smart Switch 0A9A t
SSIDs of the other networks, most of Of course, the Kasa plugs are much easier to
which are my neighbors' networks, ft ; w ork with, since no wiring access is needed.
are obscured here for privacy. The Kasa discover command is designed to
locate Kasa devices on your network. However, at
this point, the command won't find any devices
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
for the simple reason that the device doesn't
Dev Gualtieri received his Ph.D. in Solid State Science and Technology from know your Wi-Fi SSID (name) and password,
Syracuse University in 1974. He had a thirty-year career in research and and it can't join the network. The Raspberry
technology at a major aerospace company and is now retired. Dr. Gualtieri Pi, however, can join the Kasa device's network
writes a science and technology blog at http://www.tikalon.com/blog/blog.php. for initialization. When you examine the Wi-Fi
He is the author of three science fiction novels, and books about science and networks available to the Raspberry Pi, as in
mathematics. See http://www.tikalonpress.com for details. Figure 3, you'll see your Kasa device is listed
as an unsecured network. The menu shows
 circuitcellar.com 27

that the Raspberry Pi is connected to my Wi-Fi the On and Off buttons appear for all devices,
access point named SmartPi. the percentage buttons—which represent the
To configure the Kasa device, connect to percentage of brightness— only appear when the
its netw ork and execute the Kasa discover device is a dimmer. You don't need to create such an
com m and. You will see ju st one device w ith elaborate image for your sm art home system. The
the IP address 192.168.0.1. You can then scan sm art home web page will work with any image, F
E
for the W i-Fi netw orks that are visible to the such as a simple rectangle with the names of your A
T
U
device w ith the com m and kasa --h o st devices. I used the Linux Inkscape application to R
E
1 9 2 .1 6 8 .0 .1 W i- F i scan. create my graphic. S
As a result, you'll find your W i-Fi access This manual control application, smarthome,
point and its m ethod o f secure access (usually php, appears at the IP address of the Raspberry Pi.
keytype 3). Use the com m and k a s a --h o st In my case, it's 192.168.1.184. It's addressed on my
1 9 2 .1 6 8 .0 .1 W i- F i jo in --p a ssw o rd computing devices as:
‘ p a ssw o rd ’ --k e y ty p e 3 ‘ S m a r t P i’
to instruct the Kasa device to join the access http://192.168.1.184/smarthome/smarthome.php
point netw ork, substituting your SSID for
the Sm artPi SSID of my access point and since it's placed in the /var/www/htm l/smarthom e
your passw ord for the passw ord portion. directory of the Raspberry Pi. It comm unicates with
Then, sw itch the Raspberry Pi back to your the Kasa devices via the shell_exec() command in
access point netw ork, and once again execute PHP, which calls the Kasa application with appropriate
Kasa discover. You'll find your Kasa device
there along w ith its IP address; fo r exam ple
Alias Type IP address X Y
192.168.1.xxx. At that point, you can set the
device alias, in this case "porch," w ith the "n o n e
com m and k a s a --h o st 1 9 2 .1 6 8 .1 .x x x kitchen dim m er 192.168.1.204 325 150
a lia s ‘ p o r c h ’ . Subsequent execution o f
yard dim m er 192.168.1.191 425 75
Kasa discover w ill show that the device now
has its alias. lamp_post switch 192.168.1.196 400 400

garage switch 192.168.1.201 475 300

WEB BROWSER MANUAL
porch switch 192.168.1.181 275 300
CONTROL
Many decades ago, I w rote many applications X m a s jig h ts switch 192.168.1.203 175 375
in Visual Basic, principally because it was a lawn_display plug 192.168.1.200 400 300
sim ple way to create a graphical user interface
living_room plug 192.168.1.197 325 225
(GUI). I chose a web brow ser as the graphical
user interface for the sm art home applications t abl e 1
presented in this article. This allowed me to This is the devices.csv file used in my smart home installation. In the actual file, the column data are
host the applications on a Raspberry Pi and demarcated by commas. The header is included as part of the file for readability, but it's ignored by the
execute them on any OS, including my Linux application programs. The (x,y) values are the location of the device icons on the web page image map,
com puters and various Android tablets in my as described in the text.
house. The source code for all my sm art home
applications are available for download from
the Circuit Cellar website.
The types and qualities of the Kasa devices
in my house are known to my sm art home
applications through a com m a-separated
variable (CSV) file. This can be created through
the LibreO ffice Calc spreadsheet application,
the Gnum eric spreadsheet application, or a
text editor. The present version fo r my own
house can be seen in Table 1.
There's a ~none entry w ith an initial
tilde to ensure that this null device appears
at the end o f a sorted table. The x and y
values are the pixel coordinates of a graphical
representation of the devices in my house
(Figure 4) that appears on a m anual control
brow ser page hosted by the R aspberry Pi. A
FIGURE 4
finger press in a tablet web browser, or a mouse
Here's a screenshot of the web browser interface for manual control of the Kasa devices in my house
click on a desktop computer's web browser,
when the yard light icon is clicked. A mouse click or finger press displays the current state of the device
will display the state of the chosen device and
at the bottom of the screen. The On and Off buttons are always present, but the percentage brightness
an array of buttons for manual control. While
buttons only appear when the device is dimmable.
28 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

command line arguments and gathers whatever lights and appliances. Another web browser
output information it generates. application, entry.php, lets you create a list of
While PHP code is quite readable and looks daily On, Off, and Dim events. This file allows
a lot like the C language, those not familiar with up to forty possible events, but I use less
server-side coding will find some parts of the than twenty in my home. So, there's plenty
S
smarthome.php code to be mysterious. The of room for expansion. As you can see in the
E manual application has been tested with both browser screenshot in Figure 5, the devices
R
U Firefox and Chromium on my Linux desktop appear in sorted order, and there are drop­
T
A
E
F computers, Chromium on a Samsung tablet, down lists to select the Kasa device, the time
and the Silk browser on an Amazon Fire HD. by hour, minute, and AM/PM, the event type,
and whether the listed time is fixed or tracks
TIMED EVENTS the sunrise or sunset. The times are in five
The manual control application is minute increments to limit the number of
occasionally useful, but the heart of the items in the drop-down lists.
smart home system is the timed control of At my latitude, evening twilight lasts
about half an hour after sunset, and morning
twilight begins about half an hour before
Smart sunrise. The times for sunrise and sunset are
Home Events updated daily. In this way, entries such as
Interface "sunset+15" will be the appropriate time for
any day of the year.
S u n r ise = 0 7 :1 5 AM S u n s e t = 0 6 :1 0 PM Firefox is my browser of choice, but I
discovered that it has a long-standing problem
Save in updating the standard HTML list boxes after
a page refresh. A possible reason why this
garage 1 0 . 30 , PM, On a c tu a l_ tim e , bug has never been fixed is that almost every
garage 12. 30, AM, Off a c tu a l_ tim e . website now uses custom list boxes created
6 1 30 , su n se t+ 2 0 using CSS, and these work fine in Firefox.
k itc h e n PM, On
However, the standard HTML list boxes are
k itc h e n 1 2 , 30 , AM, Off a c tu a l_ tim e , far easier to program, so I use the Chromium
la m p _ p o s t 6 . 25 , PM, On su n se t+ 1 5 web browser for editing the events. Clicking
the Save button writes the edited events to a
la m p _ p o s t 3 . 00. AM, Off a c tu a l_ tim e .
CSV file named events.csv.
la w n _ d is p la y . 6 . 1 5 , PM, On su n se t+ 5 Here's where file permissions become
1 a w n _ d is p la y . 1 1 , 00 , PM, Off J a c tu a l_ tim e . important. During my program development,
there was never any problem reading the
1 iv in g _ r o o m . 7 , 00 , PM. N one a c tu a l_ tim e . events.csv file. However, the data entry page
porch 6 , 3 0 , PM, On su n se t+ 2 0 wouldn't write to the events.csv file after
porch 1 1 , 30 , PM. Off a c tu a l_ tim e » clicking the Save button until I assigned
it to the www-data group with read/write
X m a s _ lig h t s , 6 , 1 5 , PM. N one su n se t+ 5 privileges. This was accomplished through
X m a s _ lig h ts . 1 1 , b o , PM. N one a c tu a l_ tim e . the following commands:
yard 6 , 20 * PM. On su n se t+ 1 0
sudo - i
yard ^5 v 5 0 , AM. Off s u n r is e -3 0 . (pi user password requested)
—n o n e 12 , 0 0 , PM. N one a c tu a l_ tim e . cd /var/www/html/smart home
~none 12 , 0 0 - PM, N one a c tu a l_ tim e , chgrp www-data events.csv
chmod 666 events.csv
-*none . 1 2 7 0 0 , PM. N one a c tu a l_ tim e ,
■ .. '“T A 'T I * « ■ 1 I

The file permissions can then be checked

a

using the command, 1s -1 events.csv.

FIGURE 5
This is a screenshot of a portion of the event editor web browser interface. Evening twilight lasts about
half an hour after sunset, and morning twilight begins about half an hour before sunrise. The drop-down
AUTOMATIC CONTROL
lists allow a range of times during times of partial darkness. A companion PHP application, schedule,
php, loads the device.csv and events.csv files,
substitutes the sundown- and sunset-related
Additional materials from the author are available at:
times based on the current day, and continually
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials
cycles through time values looking for a match
Reference [1] as marked in the article can be found there. to the present time. When it finds a match, it
creates and executes the appropriate Kasa
RESOURCES command. The application monitors the creation
time of both the device.csv and events.csv files
Kasa Smart | www.kasasmart.com
 circuitcellar.com

and reloads their data if they have been changed. An optional

log file, log.txt, logs all Kasa events and other information.
The schedule.php application can be launched from a
terminal, but we would like the Raspberry Pi to function
without a keyboard, mouse, or monitor. Also, we need to
ensure that the application loads after any power interruption.
In the past, when the Raspberry Pi OS was called Raspbian,
I would do this by adding a line to the /etc/rc.local file. For
some reason, this didn't work for the current Raspberry Pi
OS, so I used a simple, and perhaps more reliable, method of
creating a cron event.
Cron is a Linux process that enables the execution of
commands at specific times, including reboot. You can create
a cron event by creating a crontab file with the command and
its execution time. While the Pi user can create crontabs, we
need to create this crontab as root by executing the command
sudo cro n ta b -e in a terminal. The -e command line
option specifies your desire to edit a blank crontab, and you'll
FIGURE 6
be presented with a list of editors. The simple text editor,
Here's a detailed view of a Kasa model HS220 dimmer, showing the locations of the
nano, is always a good choice. After all the helpful comments reset and restart switches. A simple press of the restart switch reboots the dimmer,
in that file, add the following line, write the file and exit: while a 10-second press of the reset switch causes a factory reset.

©reboot php /var/www/html/smart home/schedule.php &

The trailing ampersand is important. Otherwise, cron will cause the system to hang during boot.

NETWORK INTERFACE
As written earlier, to access the Raspberry Pi web server, you need its IP address. You can find this by executing 1f conf 1g
from the command line on the Raspberry Pi, or by using the nmap command on another Linux machine on your home network.
These will output something like the following, from which I found the 192.168.1.184 IP address of my Raspberry Pi. Nmap also
shows all the Kasa devices on your home network, as the example illustrates.

wlanO: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST mtu 1500

in e t 192.168.1.184 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

nmap -sL 192.168.1.1-255

Nmap scan report fo r ra s p b e rry p i. f 1os - ro u te r . home (192.168.1.184)
Nmap scan rep ort fo r HS220. f io s - ro u te r . home (192.168.1.191)

You can set a static IP address for your Raspberry Pi if you want, but that takes some effort. However, I've found that the
assigned IP address of my Raspberry Pi doesn't change, which is likely a consequence of the device being on all the time, and
the router giving its connections a long lease life.
You can access the Raspberry Pi using the secure shell (SSH) from a terminal. For my system with my IP address, this is
accomplished with the command ssh -X -1 pi 192.168.1.184. Once you've connected with the Raspberry Pi, you can open
a graphical instance of the file manager by typing pcmanfm. I've always found that graphical interfaces make life a lot easier.
You can also copy programs to and from the Raspberry Pi using the secure copy protocol (SCP), which is only possible if
you've enabled SSH on your Raspberry Pi. On my system, I use the following commands, for which you should substitute your
own Raspberry Pi IP address in place of mine, and your own Pi username for p ijjse r:

Transfer files to the Raspberry Pi:

scp /Io c a l_ fo ld e r/ lo c a l_ file n a m e pi_user@192.1 6 8 .1 .2 5 3 :/p i_ fo 1d e r / p i_ f i1ename

Get files from the Raspberry Pi:

scp pi_user@192.1 6 8 .1 .2 53: / p i_ fo l d e r / p i_ f11 ename /I o c a l_ fo l d e r / 1 o c a l_ fi1ename

In my time using my smart home system, I experienced one small problem. After a power interruption, one of my eight Kasa
devices disappeared from the network. Problems like this are corrected by a physical restart of the switch or dimmer device
through the use of a small button on these devices (Figure 6). There's also a button to perform a factory reset. A Kasa plug can
be restarted by unplugging it from its wall outlet and then replacing it. Plugs also have a button that allows a factory reset.
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

DOWNLOADS AND POSSIBLE presence of all devices on the device.csv device

ENHANCEMENTS list. If you want, you can place this utility in a
The source code for the three smart home location other than /var/www/html/smarthome
applications described in this article, plus that on the Raspberry Pi, where the other files are
for an additional utility application, is available placed. Table 2 lists the files and their purposes.
for download at the Circuit Cellar website. The The timed events scheduling program, schedule,
utility application is the command line program php, is automatically executed each time the
kasa_device_check.php, which verifies the Raspberry Pi is rebooted.
While this basic control system is a
File Description replacement for my X10 system, the Kasa
devices have features that can be used for
devices.csv Device properties
potential enhancements. They have an energy
events.csv List of timed events monitor, called emeter, that reports the power
smarthome.php Web page for device manual control used in the circuit connected to the device. This
can be used as a means of determining whether
entry, php Web page for entry of timed events
a light bulb has failed by detecting a lack of
schedule.php Timed events scheduling program change through an on/off cycle.
kasa_device_check.php Command line utility to check all devices If a Kasa switch or dimmer can't be installed
because there is no neutral wire in a switch box,
homejayout.png Graphic for manual control web page
there are Kasa bulbs available to simply replace
sm artjogo.png Smart home logo existing light bulbs. Some free and open-source
smarthome.ico Smart home icon Linux speech recognition software is presently
available, so a companion device could be built
favicon, ico Web page icon
to achieve voice control of the devices. Since the
TABLE 2 number of words in the training set would be
These are the files to be placed in the Raspberry Pi directory /var/www/html/smarthome. small, there's a good chance of success.

PHP Web Pages

PHP web pages are HTML pages containing inline PHP
scripts. The PHP scripts, enclosed between the markers
<?php and ?>, can appear anywhere on the page and can
be of any length, and there's no limit on how many there
can be. PHP has many built-in functions that make for easy
programming, such as the d a t e _ s u n _ i n f o ( ) function
used in the smart home applications to determine the
sunrise and sunset times.
The PHP scripts function by inserting text into the
HTML source through use of the PHP "echo" command. For
example, a line break in HTML is <br>. For PHP to generate
a line break, the script would be ech o “ <br>” ;. An HTML
link and its equivalent PHP script are:
<a h r e f = ” h t t p s : / / c i r c u i t c e l l a r . c o m ” > C 1 rc u it
Cel 1ar</a>
This example illustrates that a quotation mark embedded
in a string must be preceded by a backslash to discriminate
it from the end of the string.
Unlike an application hosted on a device, a web page
doesn't have local storage. A variable's value is not saved
between page refreshes. Instead, such data needs to be
sent to and recovered from the server, using $_POST
from a page identified as a form with a tag like <form
a c t 1on=” m y fo rm . p h p ” m ethod= ” p o s t ” >.
$_P0ST information is not visible to the user, but it
can be extracted with some simple techniques. That's why
unencrypted passwords and other sensitive data should
not be sent using $_P0ST in an Internet application. The
PHP source code is not visible when viewing the web page
source. Only the PHP-generated text inserted into the HTML
source is visible.

echo h r e f = \ ” h t t p s : / / c i r c u i t c e l 1a r.
com \” >C1 r c u i t Cel 1a r </ a >” ;
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CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
FIGURE 4
SMT breakout board
And now we come to modern times,
arguably the golden age of PCB creation.
Software packages are available that
do everything but produce the circuits,
simplifying and accelerating the design
cycle. Simulation accomplishes the fine-
tuning process in the virtual domain, thus
eliminating much of the trial and error in
board design. This technological revolution
has benefited the mechanical engineering
side of the business even more deeply, with
computer-based modeling and rendering,
and the 3D printing of parts. However, on the
double-E side of the fence, there remains that
pesky physical PCB requirement. And, as you
mentioned about half of a diatribe or so ago,
you still need to produce a prototype. Okay,
okay—let's get down to business.
FIGURE 5
Vero board prototype
PCB PROTOTYPE OVERVIEW
For this article, rather than rely on my
somewhat dusty engineering prototype
expertise, I decided to venture out into the
uncharted seas of the Internet and do some
research. My goal was to survey the current
state of the art, while at the same time
getting my OG-EE self a bit of an education.
Turns out that a lot of my earlier experience
is still relevant. The small project/hobbyist
sector is being well served by the newer
generation of prototyping boards, and folks
such as Adafruit [1] and Vero [2] are making a
whole line of products to assist. I write about
their offerings later in this article.
Also, while wire-wrap prototypes seem to
be well and truly dead, short-run design and
fab houses are still going strong. I found a lot
of options, with a wide variety of specialties
and price ranges. From this long list I picked a
few typical examples, and I will give a shout­
out to them in a later section.
Lastly, there is a growing trend toward
a real revolution, akin in many ways to
the in-house 3D printing boom that has
taken mechanical fabrication by storm. I
found several companies—Voltera [3], Nano
Dimension [4], and Bot Factory [5]—that are
producing slick, desktop PCB fabrication bots
that can print your prototype while you watch
from the comfort of your favorite lab chair. I'll
discuss these tech wonders last.
SMALL PROJECTS/HOBBYIST
Adafruit: Adafruit was founded in 2005 by
MIT engineering graduate Limor Fried, with
the goal of becoming the go-to online source
for makers of all skill levels to learn about
electronics and design. Adafruit carries a full
line of prototyping products, tools for coding,
and full development kits for the serious
hobbyist. Based in New York City and with
over 100 full-time employees, the Adafruit
store sells everything from connectors to
components. They test every product for
quality and reliability before making them
available on their website. For PCB prototyping
they provide wires, headers, breadboards,
surface-mount technology (SMT) breakout
boards, displays, and much more to support
the creative professional or the aspiring
student (Figure 4). Their founder places a
premium on quality, as you can see from this
quote on their website: "In the last 10 years,
Adafruit has grown to over 100+ employees in
the heart of NYC with a 50,000+ sq ft. factory.
Adafruit has expanded offerings to include
tools, equipment, and electronics that Limor
personally selects, tests, and approves before
they are listed in the Adafruit store."
Vero: UK-based Vero Technologies Ltd has
been in business for over 50 years, serving

the PCB design and prototyping market. Like
Adafruit, they provide a full line of prototyping
products and services, but they also include
prototype development, PCB design support,
fabrication, custom plastics, and metal
enclosures in their line (Figure 5).
All of Vero's products are manufactured
in their Southampton facilities and are
supported by their worldwide distribution
partners. Vero offers the ability to modify or
customize their standard products, reducing
the costs of procurement for the end user, and
lowering the overall costs by being a one-stop
shop. Vero serves a diverse customer base,
but I would say they're more focused on the
commercial market than on the hobbyist.
Their mission is to assist customers in
bringing their products to market in a timely
and cost-effective manner.
DESIGN/FAB HOUSES
For those that prefer to outsource their
fabrication, many short-run manufacturing
firm s can provide these services. A casual
search for PCB fabrication will turn up
hundreds of candidates, so choosing a
firm can be daunting. As with any service
provider, reliability, convenience, cost, speed,
and other factors come into play. These are
specific criteria, and therefore difficult to
generalize in an article of this nature. So, the
firm s mentioned here are by no means an
exhaustive list.
Millennium Circuits Limited: Founded in
2005, Millennium Circuits Limited (MCL) started
out supplying bare PCBs [6]. Over the last 15
years, they've expanded their capabilities
to include everything from quick-turn
prototypes to scheduled runs of production­
quantity products. They can produce boards
in various form factors, including rigid, flex,
rigid-flex, aluminum, ceramic, heavy copper,
RF/microwave, HDI, and more. They are ISO
9001 certified, with the controls and processes
necessary to ensure the consistent quality
that every customer should expect from their
PCB partner.
MCL serves all sizes of companies and
industries, including automotive, consumer
electronics, marine, industrial, test and
measurement, LED, medical and more.
They provide rapid quote responses, flexible
lead times, technical support, cutting-edge
technology, superior price-to-value ratio, and a
variety of PCB solutions through a single source.
Screaming Circuits: I don't know about
you, but I just like their name. Screaming
Circuits is a division of Milwaukee Electronics
[7]. They were founded in 2003 to provide
personalized PCB assembly and fast, flexible,
on-demand prototypes. They specialize in
accuracy, fast turnaround, and top-notch
circuitcellar.com 35
customer service. They were among the first
PCB fab houses to embrace instant online
quoting and e-commerce manufacturing. They
focus on making the PCB fabrication process
as easy and customer-friendly as possible.
SlingShot Assembly: Another cute name,
Colorado-based SlingShot Assembly also
provides fast turnaround on prototypes.
They quote full, top-quality PCB assemblies
as low as $500. Their motto is "We Do The
Impossible... EVERYDAY," and they emphasize
value while still meeting the short turnaround
times that developers require. Like Screaming
Circuits, they have a full online quote and
order process. You upload your design, get
an instant quote, and then place an order
with just a few mouse clicks. For ease and
convenience, they can't be beat. T
E
C
RayMing Technology: For more mature H
designs where the need is small-run F
E
manufacturing in the hundreds to low thousands A
T
U
of pieces, there are many fab houses with excess R
E
capacity that can do the job. RayMing, a global
company based in Shenzhen, China, provides
this type of contract manufacturing (CM). It can
be the next step in scaling your prototype into
full production. Turnaround times are longer and
include international shipping. But during the
14-year period in which I ran my own company,
contract manufacturers like RayMing were
how we brought all of our products to market.
Sure, there were risks in sending our designs
overseas, not least of which is piracy. But the
low cost, reasonable minimum run quantities,
and short supply chain made this type of
fab attractive to a small company in a niche
market. This option is a little outside of the
FIGURE 6
Voltera V-One
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

pure PCB prototyping arena, but many CMs
will support your prototype with short runs,
simplifying the eventual production ramp-up.
PCBWay: Last, but certainly not least, we
have PCBWay. This CM has been in business
for more than a decade and has a worldwide
presence. They pride themselves on fulfilling
your prototype needs as a one-stop shop.
Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, with
offices in France, the U.K., Hong Kong, and
Shenzhen, PCBWay specializes in high-quality,
on-time delivery of your project prototype
in any volume. In addition to standard PCB
prototyping, they offer CNC machining, flexible
PC substrates, assembly services, and a host
of other specialty fabrications, with an optional
24-hour turnaround on your prototype.

BOT-BOT-BOT
Now we come to the fun part. Buckle
up OG-EEs, because the game is changing.
Perhaps I am late to the party, but the most
interesting thing I found while doing research
for this article was PCB fabrication bots. In
the same vein as the now commonplace use
of 3D printers for mechanical part fabrication,
these bots will print your PCB for you. This
information was astounding to little old me.
Let's now go into some detail on this brave
new PCB prototyping world.
Voltera V-One: The first bot I found was
the Voltera V-One (Figure 6). This compact
device takes up just a few square feet of
bench space, but it packs a lot of punch.
According to the manufacturer, there is a
bit of a learning curve, and you may have to
make a few practice boards to get the hang of
it. But once you do, it's easy to use.
The V-One uses high-performance
conductive ink to print your PCB traces on
almost any type of substrate, with your
standard Gerber file as input. The V-One also
dispenses tin-bismuth-silver or tin-lead solder
paste at pad sites. And it supports multi-jig
drilling with snap-in tools and reflow soldering.
All in all, it's wicked cool tech.
The manufacturer claims that the inks are
sim ilar in conductive performance to copper,
and are suitable for digital, radiofrequency,
FIGURE 7 and low-power circuits. A $100 ink cartridge
DragonFly IV will print many PCBs, depending of course on
the size and complexity of the circuits you're
building. A single ink cartridge equates to
Additional materials from the author are available at:
100m of conductive trace at 8mil (0.2mm)
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials width, or 200cm 2 of solid pour. Each ink
Reference [1] thru [10] as marked in the article can be found there. cartridge has an official shelf life of six months
and should be stored in the refrigerator when
Resources not used.
Adafruit | www.adafruit.com The V-One provides a precision dispensing
BotFactory | www.botfactory.co system for fine fluid control that deposits ink
and solder paste with a 0.65mm pin-to-pin
Millenium Circuits Limited | www.mclpcb.com pitch. It can dispense solder paste on pads as
Nano Dimension | www.nano-di.com small as 0402 and ICs that have a 0.5mm pin-
to-pin pitch. One solder paste cartridge will
RayMing Technology | www.raypcb.com
cover up to 11,000 0603 solder pads and has an
Screaming Circuits | www.screamingcircuits.com official shelf life of eight months. It should also
SlingShot Assembly | www.slingshotassembly.com
be stored in the refrigerator when not used.
The unit has interchangeable drill heads
Vero Technologies Ltd | www.verotl.com for vias and through holes, and it maintains
Voltera | www.voltera.io a 3mm runout even at high speeds. All the
 circuitcellar.com 37

different size drill bits, rivets, and other to make PCBs in minutes. The unit takes
accessories you need to get started are your hands out of the equation by precisely
included with the printer, and more are sold depositing solder paste on every pad, and
at the store on their website [10]. part pick and place is done with computer
There are many more details about vision-guided vacuum heads. Solder reflow is
soldering, reflow, and substrates given on performed automatically and under precise
Voltera's website. The cost of the system itself heat control. Priced in the $15,000 range, the
is in the $5,000-$7,000 range, comparable to a SV2 provides both low-volume manufacturing
mid-grade 3D printer, and affordable for even and rapid iterative prototyping capability.
a small, home-based business. Voltera says
users can make a simple single-layer board CONCLUSION
in under an hour: five minutes to print, thirty Whew! That was a lot of information. But,
minutes to bake (the ink needs to be dried), as the Romans used to say, you can't make an
and depending on how fast you place your omelet without breaking some Gauls, or
components (they must be placed by hand), something like that. And speaking of omelets,
about 10-15 minutes to dispense solder paste don't you have a prototype you were going to
and reflow. whip up? Come on OG! Spring is in the air! The
Nano Dimension DragonFly IV: The Nano snow is thawing, and the armies of feature
Dimension Dragonfly IV provides a higher— hunting sales teams are at the barbican gates.
ahem—dimension of production (Figure 7). I don't know about you, but I'm going to head
The Dragonfly is a multi-material, multi-layer to my lab and get cracking! I can't wait to see
3D printer that generates entire circuits in what comes out.
one step—including substrates, conductive
traces, and passive components. It can build FIGURE 8
complex and sophisticated custom designs SV2
with extreme precision, allowing makers a
sky-is-the-lim it freedom in their designs. This
technology is a step beyond.
The Dragonfly can produce electronic
designs in 3D space and can fabricate
active components using their Additively
Manufactured Electronics (AME) techniques.
The Dragonfly can produce RF Devices directly
from their design software, fully simulated
and then rendered. Their radiofrequency
(RF) devices have been tested in space and
5G wireless applications. AME technology
and Dimension fabrication allow developers
to take their electronics to new levels of
performance, fit, and function.
BotFactory: The Long Island, New York­
based BotFactory has a full lineup of midsize
robotic PCB fabrication engines. Their first
offering, sadly now obsolete, was the Squink,
suited for the small-to-hobbyist market. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Their new product line, SV2 Starter through
Michael Lynes is an entrepreneur who has founded
SV2 Professional, provides higher throughput
several startu p ventures. He was aw arded a BSEE
and precision, but lacks some of the quirky
degree in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute
charms of the earlier product.
of Technology and currently works as an embedded
The SV2 Starter can produce two-layer
boards with 8mil (0.2 mm) traces and 16mil softw are engineer. When not occupied w ith arcane

(0.4 mm) spacing, ideal for SOIC-type chips.
The unit has PCB fabrication and pick-and-
place capability, allowing you to produce fully
functional boards for low-rate manufacturing
as well as prototyping. The unit automatically
lays out traces and paste, picks the parts, places
them, and performs solder reflow, all in one full
run. PCBs, depending on complexity, can be
fabricated in hours rather than days or weeks.
The SV2 employs both low-resistivity
conductive inks and dielectric insulating inks
engineering projects, he spends his time playing with his
three grandchildren, baking bread, working on ancient
cars, backyard birdwatching, and taking am ateur photographs. He's also a
prolific author with over thirty works in print. His latest series is the Cozy Crystal
Mysteries. Book one, Moonstones and Murder, is already in print, and book
two is on its way. His latest works include several collections of ghost stories,
short works of general fiction, a collection called Angel Stories, and another
collection called November Tales, inspired by the fiction of Ray Bradbury. He
currently lives with his wife Margaret in the beautiful, secluded hills of Sussex
County, New Jersey. You can contact him via email at mikelynes@gmail.com.
38 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Datasheet:
DSPs & DSCs
High Performance Chips for
Digital Signal Processing and Control

T
E
E
H
S
A
T
A
D

Editor-in-Chief

Digital signal processors (DSPs) and digital signal controllers (DSCs) are
designed for time-critical execution of complex algorithms. These chips
are crucial to many high-end, high-performance applications today.

t's hard to believe now, but the first
dedicated digital signal processor (DSP),
Texas Instrum ents' TMS5100, was first used
in its fam ous Speak & Spell product, released
on the m arket in 1978. Of course, the im portance
of this chip was not overlooked at the tim e— it
was also the first to use linear predictive coding
to perform speech synthesis. But today, DSPs
are integral to a m ultitude of high-end, high-
perform ance industrial applications. Some well-
known exam ples are radar, oil and gas seismology,
MRI machines, ultrasound, satellites, and m issile
guidance. It's incredible to think of the humble
origins of this broad fam ily of devices.
Rounding up a list of new DSP devices can
be a tricky business, as the same device which
m ight be called a DSP by some vendors could
be called a m icrocontroller (MCU) by others. For
our purposes, a defining characteristic of DSPs is
"determ inistic" execution of tasks, which is their
ability to handle tasks in a prescribed am ount of
tim e— no exceptions, no delays. Indeed, DSPs are
meant for applications that require the processing
of complex algorithm s in a tim e-critical fashion.
The waters are only further muddied by digital
signal controllers (DSCs), which, as their name
suggests, are hybrids of DSPs and MCUs. These
devices incorporate common DSC features—such
as barrel shifters, large accumulators, and single­
cycle multiply-accumulate (MAC) units—with the fast
interrupt responses and control-oriented peripherals
typical of MCUs. Not everyone uses the DSC
nomenclature, but a couple of DSC products have
been included in this month's gallery for your review.
The DSP and DSC m arket has long been
dominated by a handful of key players. Atypical of
our Datasheet column, Analog Devices, NXP
Sem iconductors, and Texas Instrum ents have two
products each this month to reflect their
significance in this field.

High-Performance Floating-
Point Processor...
Analog Devices' ADSP-SC59x family
of processors are members of the SHARC
family of single-instruction, multiple data
(SIMD) DSPs featuring Analog Devices'
Super Harvard Architecture. They're
based on the SHARC+ dual-core and the
Arm Cortex-A5 core, and they're suited
for automative, professional audio, and
industrial applications requiring high
floating-point performance.
• 1 GHz (max) Core clock frequency
• 640KB on-chip Level 1 (LI) SRAM
memory (with parity) increases low
latency performance
• 32-bit, 40-bit & 64-bit floating point
support; 32-bit fixed point
• Byte, short-word, word, long-word
addressed
• 1 GHz Arm Cortex-A5 (with Neon/FPU)
• 32kB/32kB LI Instr./Data Cache
• 256kB L2 Cache
• 2048 KB on-chip Level 2 (L2) SRAM with
ECC protection
• Level 3 (L3) interface optimized for low
system power, providing 16-bit interface
to DDR3 (supporting 1.35V capable
DDR3L devices)
• 17mm x 17mm (0.8mm pitch) 400-ball
FCBGA
Analog Devices
www.analog.com
DATASHEET URLS:
Analog Devices ADSP-SC592: www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/adsp-21591-593-594-adsp-sc591-sc592-sc594.pdf
Analog Devices ADSP-21562: www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/adsp-21562-21563-21565-21566-21567-21569.pdf
Knowles IA8201: www.knowles.com/docs/default-source/default-document-library/knowles-ia8201-product-brief-final9d761b731dff6ddbb37cff0000940cl9.pdf?sfvrsn=4
...And Its Single-Core Cousin
Analog Devices' ADSP-2156x
processors are also in the SHARC family
of products—in this case based on the
SHARC+ single core. Like the ADSP-SC59x
family, these processors features Analog's
Super Harvard Architecture, large SRAM,
multiple internal buses, and innovative
DAIs.
• Powerful DMA system
• On-chip m em ory protection
• Integrated safety features
• 17mm x 17mm, 400-ball CSP_BGA
(0.8mm pitch), RoHS com pliant
• 120-lead LQFP_EP (0.4mm pitch),
RoHS com pliant
• Low system power across
autom otive tem perature range
• Large on-chip Level 2 (L2) SRAM
with ECC protection, up to 8Mb
• One Level 3 (L3) interface optim ized
for low system power,
providing 16-bit interface to DDR3/
DDR3L SDRAM devices
Analog Devices
www.analog.com
circuitcellar.com 39
High-Performance, Low-
Power Audio Edge Processor D
A
T
A
The Knowles AlSonic Audio Edge S
H
processor IA8201 is a high-performance, E
E
ultra-low power audio-centric OpenDSP T
supporting up to four mics, multiple high­
speed interfaces and GPIOs in two package
options (eWLB and QFN). It combines two
Tensilica-based, audio-centric DSP cores—
one for high-power computer and machine
learning (ML), and the other for low-power
always-on processor of sensor inputs. Both
also work as general-purpose controllers
using the Tensilica-based instruction set.
• Multi-core: DeltaMax optim ized for
compute, HemiDelta optim ized for
low power
• Up to 4x PDM Digital Microphones,
1 stero input, 4x mono inputs, and
1 stereo output, supporting clock
rates up to 6.144 MHz
• Up to 3x PS/TDM ports supporting
8 channels each of 32-bit audio data
using a 24.576MHz input clock
• Control Interfaces: SPI, I 2 C, UART,
available GPIOs
• 1.44MB RAM (1MB available to user)
• 175MHz clock
Knowles
www.knowles.com
40 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Datasheet:

DSPs & DSCs

A Multi-Tasking Dual Core Chip General Usage DSC Family with A Chip for High-End Industrial
MCU Functionality Solutions
The dsPIC33CH128MP508 Dual Core
T
E DSC from Microchip Technology is geared NXP Semiconductor's MC56F80xxx Also from NXP is the MSC8256, built
E
H toward system developers designing DSC family are general usage digital around six StarCore DSP SC3850 core
S
A high-end embedded control applications. signal controllers based on the 32-bit subsystems operating at up to 1 GHz/8000
T
A
D It has two dsPIC DSC cores—a main core 56800EF core. On a single chip, each MMACS per core and up to 48000 MMACS
for user interface, system monitoring device combines the processing power of per device. This multicore processor's
and communications functions, and a a DSP and the functionality of an MCU, ready for advanced processing
secondary that can execute dedicated, with a flexible set of peripherals to support requirements and high-performance,
time-critical control code while the main many target applications, including high-end industrial applications such as
core's busy. The dsPIC33CH can facilitate industrial control, motor control, home medical imaging, aerospace, defense,
independent code development for each appliances, general-purpose inverters, and advanced test and measurement
core. This family of chips is ideal for smart sensors including fire and markets. The MSC8256 will help
high-performance digital power, motor security systems, medical monitoring equipment manufacturers create end
control, advanced sensing and control, applications, and more. products and services that integrate
and general-purpose high-end embedded more functionality in a smaller hardware
applications requiring sophisticated • DSC based on 32-bit 56800EF core footprint.
algorithms. • On-chip memory: Up to 64KB flash
memory, 8KB data/program RAM • Six StarCore DSP SC3850 core
• 3V to 3.6V, -40°C to +150°C • Two high-speed, 12-bit ADCs with subsystems each with: SC3850 DSP
• Core: Dual Core dsPIC33CH DSCs dynamic x l, x2, core at up to 1GHz; 512KB unified L2
• Main Core 90MHz and Secondary Core and x4 programmable amplifier cache/M2 memory; 32KB I-cache,
100 MHz Operation • One high-resolution eFlexPWM 32KB D-cache; Fully programmable
• Independent Peripherals for Main Core module with up to 12 1056KB M3 shared memory (SRAM)
and Secondary Core PWM outputs, including up to 8 • Two DDR 2/3 64-bit SDRAM
• Fast 6-Cycle Divide channels with 312ps interfaces at up to 800MHz data rate
• Code Efficient (C and Assembly) resolution NanoEdge placement • High-speed interconnects:
Architecture • Communication interfaces include: Dual 4 x /lx Serial RapidlO at
• 40-Bit Wide Accumulators Up to two high-speed queued SCI 1.25/2.5/3.125 Gbaud; PCI Express
• Single-Cycle (MAC/MPY) with Dual Data (QSCI) modules with LIN remote 4x/lx; Two SGMII
Fetch functionality; One LPI2C module • Dual RISC QUICC Engine supporting
• Single-Cycle, Mixed-Sign MUL Plus (supports Full PMBus) RGMII gigabit Ethernet ports and
Hardware Divide Serial peripheral interface (SPI)
• 32-Bit Multiply Support NXP Semiconductors
www.nxp.com NXP Semiconductors
Microchip Technology www.nxp.com
www.microchip.com

DATASHEET URLS:

Microchip dsPIC33CH128MP508: wwl.microchip.com/clownloacls/aemDocuments/documents/MCU16/ProductDocuments/DataSheets/clsPIC33CH128MP508-Fannily-Data-Sheet-DS70005319D.pclf

NXP S em iconductors MC56F80xxx: w w w .nxp.com /docs/en/data-sheet/M C 56F80X X X .p d f

NXP S em iconductors MSC8256: w w w .nxp.com /docs/en/fact-sheet/M S C 8256F S .pdf

 circuitcellar.com 41

TI Processor Aimed at Multi­ Infotainment Processor in a A Voice Processor Designed

Camera Edge A l Minute Package for Integrated Applications
D
Based on the Jacinto 7 architecture, The DRA78x Infotainment The VocalFusion XVF3610 from XMOS A
T
A
the TDA4VM processor from Texas Applications Processor from Texas is a high-performance voice processor S
H
Instruments helps you build power­ Instruments (TI) is designed for optimized for integrated applications. E
E
efficient and affordable multi-camera high-performance concurrencies for It features two PDM microphone T

edge A l applications for sm arter automative co-processor, hybrid radio interfaces; full duplex, stereo, acoustic
homes, cities and factories—all and amplifier applications. It's 367-ball, echo cancellation (AEC); reference
with a single-chip. This processor 15mm x 15mm, and 0.65mm ball pitch audio via I2 S with automatic bulk delay
includes a multicore Arm Cortex-A72 with Via Channel Array (VCA) tech. TI insertion; point noise suppression via
microprocessor unit (MPU), and provides development tools such as C interference canceller; switchable
offloads computationally intense tasks compilers and a debugging interface. stationary noise suppressor; a
such as deep learning inference, This family of processors meets the programmable automatic gain control
imaging, vision, video, and graphics AECqlOO standard, and features a (AGC); and independent audio paths for
processing to specialized hardware simplified power supply rail mapping communications and automatic speech
accelerators and programmable cores. that enables affordable PMIC solutions. recognition (ASR).
This processor is ideal for industrial
applications such as robotics, machine • Up to 2 C66x floating-point VLIW DSP • USB HID and Endpoint 0 control
vision, and radar. • Up to 512kB of on-chip L3 RAM interfaces
• Level 3 (L3) and Level 4 (L4) • Flexible Peripheral Interfaces
• 2 Arm Cortex-A72 interconnects • Programmable digital general-
• MCU Island of 2 Arm Cortex-R5F • Memory Interface (EMIF) module purpose inputs and outputs
(lockstep opt), SoC main of 4 Arm • Dual Arm Cortex-M4 (IPU) • I 2 C interface for system control and
Cortex-R5F (lockstep opt) • Vision accelerationPac local peripheral control
• 64-bit CPU • Display subsystem • I 2 S remote interface input & output
• 1 3D graphics acceleration • On-chip temperature sensor that is of audio data
• 2 DPI, 1 DSI, 1 EDP capable of generating temperature • SPI controller interface for control
• 1 Deep Learning accelerator, 1 alerts and interrogation of a local SPI
Depth and Motion accelerator, 1 remote devices.
Video Encode/Decode accelerator, 1 Texas Instruments
Vision processing accelerator www.ti.com XMOS
www.xmos.ai
Texas Instruments
www.ti.com

DATASHEET URLS:

Texas In s tru m e n ts TDA4VM: w w w .ti.c o m /lit/d s /s y m lin k /td a 4 v m .p d f? ts= 1 6 7 5 3 3 1 0 4 1 1 7 4 & re fjjrl= h ttp s% 2 5 3 A % 2 5 2 F % 2 5 2 F w w w .ti.co m % 2 5 2 F p ro d u ct% 2 5 2 F T D A 4 V M

Texas In s tru m e n ts DRA78x: w w w .ti.c o m /lit/d s /s y m lin k /d ra 7 8 5 .p d f? ts= 1 6 7 5 2 7 1 5 2 1 1 6 5& re f_u rl= h ttps% 2 5 3 A % 25 2 F % 2 5 2 F w w w .g o o g le .co m % 2 5 2F

XMOS VocalFusion XVF3610: w w w .xm os.ai/d o w nlo a d /X V F 3 6 1 0 -D a tash e e t(7 ).p d f

42 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Picking Up Mixed S ig n als

A Power Consumption Monitor

for Boa
Using a Teensy 4.1 MCU,
High-Side Current Monitors
and ADCs

By
Brian Millier

Battery-powered Internet-of-Things (loT) boards, incorporating some form

of RF communication to a host, consume power over a wide dynamic range.

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This article covers measuring the currents consumed by these devices, and
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calculating the power they draw over a period of time.
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O
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f you are designing boards for Internet-of-
When you are trying to determine the

I
Things (loT) applications, in many cases
they will be battery operated. Sometimes
this means very small batteries have to
be used. If the board is expected to run for
long intervals without changing batteries,
it may have to spend most of its time in a
"sleep mode," and limit the number of times
it transmits a signal with sensor data or
otherwise indicate its status.
For such battery-operated boards, the
ideal choice for a microcontroller (MCU) is one
that has the following characteristics:
• A low operating current
• The ability to enter a "deep-sleep" mode,
where the current consumption drops
down to the microamp range
• Flexibility in how the MCU can be brought
out of deep-sleep mode—for example,
with an internal timer or GPIO pin-change
• Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) communication,
if practical for the application (much lower in of normal MCU operating current. However,
power than Wi-Fi)
Although an MCU that fulfills all the above
categories is ideal, in many cases we often
pick an MCU such as the Espressif ESP32,
because it's readily available and inexpensive,
and has a lot of existing code and libraries
supporting it. In general, it conforms to most
of the above considerations, but it is definitely
not "best-in-class" when it comes to low
power consumption.
overall energy usage of an loT project, it's
helpful if you can determine the energy used
for three general modes of operation:
• Normal MCU operating current (drawn
while executing code)
• Operating current during RF transmission
and reception intervals
• Sleep or deep-sleep power consumption,
depending upon what mode can be used
RF transmission and reception consume
the most power. How much higher this is than
normal MCU operating depends largely on
whether a low-power Bluetooth protocol or
standard Wi-Fi is used. Also, an MCU that is
designed for extremely low power consumption
and is coupled with a separate RF module (Wi-
Fi/Bluetooth) may end up being more power
efficient.
Sleep modes always draw a tiny fraction
sleep mode may be in effect 99.9% of the
time in some applications, so even its tiny
power consumption may dominate the total
energy consumption over the long term.
Coming up with a good estimate of long­
term energy consumption for an loT board
running a specific application is difficult.
The peak current drawn will occur during
RF transmission/reception. It's difficult to
determine this power, since it is so dependent
on the RF protocol used, and just how quickly
 circuitcellar.com 43

a connection can be made to a Wi-Fi access

point, for example.
Apart from the MCU itself, an loT board
generally contains sensors. Whether or not
these sensors can be powered down when not
actually being used for a measurement must
be determined. Also, some sensors do not
"wake up" immediately from a power-down
state, and this may affect how quickly they
can be read.
In this project, I have tried to develop a
power-consumption monitor that can measure
current levels from the sub-microamp range
(deep-sleep mode) all the way up to 500mA
(peak current during RF transmission).
Due to the wide dynamic range of currents
involved, I chose to use two separate current
monitoring circuits. The first is a low-current
range that measures from the sub-microamp
range up to 2mA. This handles sleep modes.
Since sleep mode is basically static, I take
such readings only 10 times per second.
The second circuit is a high-current range
that measures from 1mA to 500mA. This is
the range where RF transmissions occur, and
consists of "spikes" of current, the peak values
of which are much greater than the standard
MCU operating current. For this reason, I take
readings every Ips in this range.
Using the above two measurement circuits,
I keep track of three characteristics:
• The actual current for each measurement
sample
• The overall maximum current measured
(high-current range only)
• An integration of the current over the full
data collection interval—This milliamp-
seconds reading can be used to determine,
for example, how long a battery could last.
Separate values are stored for both the
low- and high-current monitoring circuits.
a snapshot of the current draw over a short FIGURE 1
This is the oscilloscope capture of
period of time, but it won't provide a milliamp-
part of a Wi-Fi transaction using an
second reading, which is required to calculate
ESP32. Note the high-current spikes
the total energy used. You can, however,
that occur when data packets are
visualize the amplitude of the current spikes being transmitted.
that occur during transmission, and also get
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an idea of the MCU current draw when RF O
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transmission is not taking place. This helps to U
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guide your choice of a suitable battery. N
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As an example, Figure 1 is a 'scope capture
of the current consumption of an ESP32
during a small portion of its connection to a
Wi-Fi access point. The baseline is the normal
current draw for an ESP32 while executing
code, whereas the peaks are occurring during
RF transmission. Sleep currents are so low
that they would never show up on this type of
measurement.
Figure 2 is one method of using the
oscilloscope to monitor the MCU current.
Since an oscilloscope is a ground-referenced
instrument and measures voltage only, you
would have to place a low-value shunt resistor
in series with the MCU Board's GND terminal

Before getting into the details of the

circuitry in this project, let's first look at
simple ways to measure current consumption
MCU Board Vcc PC Computer
on an MCU board.
GND
SIMPLE MEASUREMENT SCHEMES
FOR POWER CONSUMPTION Digital Oscilloscope
Simple measurement schemes must be
able to handle the three radically different
operating modes noted above (normal, RF
transmission/reception intervals, and sleep Mains Ground
or deep sleep). It's hard to find a single
instrument that can measure all three modes.
Oscilloscope: The high spikes of current
drawn during RF transmission vary greatly
Mains Ground
in amplitude, and are often quite short in
duration. To perform this measurement, an
FIGURE 2
oscilloscope is probably the best instrument
A 'scope and a low-side current shunt resistor can be used to monitor the current that the MCU
that is commonly on hand. It can give you draws during normal execution, and the peak currents arising from RF transmission.
44 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
and the power supply's negative terminal.
In this illustration, I assume that the power
supply is the USB port of a PC. This is a valid
assumption because, during the firmware
development process, you typically connect
your MCU board to a PC to be able to do Serial
debugging/flash programming using the PC's
USB port and the USB-Serial bridge device
present on the MCU development board.
Since the current drawn by the MCU board
during RF transmission is likely to be fairly
high, the required shunt resistor can be
made quite small. A value in the range of 0.1-
0.5Q will provide a voltage waveform in the
millivolt range for the MCU current draws of
50-500mA that are commonly seen during Wi­
Fi transmission; normally, Bluetooth is much
less. This is easily handled by an oscilloscope.
Note that since both the 'scope and the PC
are ground-referenced, you cannot connect
the 'scope probe's GND lead to the ground
terminal on the MCU board. Doing so will
short-out the shunt resistor, and no current
signal will be observed. Instead, you must
S leave the GND lead disconnected, or connect
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during development, these readings will
incorporate an offset due to the presence of
the shunt resistor. This offset will vary, and
may be significant, depending on how much
supply current the MCU board is drawing at
the time. Although the oscilloscope will allow
you to measure the peak current easily, it
would be a lot of work to calculate the average
current over the transmission period, due to
the complexity of the current envelope.
The second scenario, normal MCU
operating current, can also be monitored
quite well using an oscilloscope connected as
shown in Figure 2. The current will be lower
FIGURE 3
The MCU's much lower "sleep-mode" current can be measured using a digital multimeter and a
higher-value shunt resistor than would be used in in Figure 2. Alternately, the multimeter's DC
current range could be used on its lowest milliamp range.
than during RF transmission, but in most
cases, will be much steadier.
Digital Multimeter: The two sleep
modes require a much different measuring
technique. Deep-sleep current is often in the
low microamp range, or even lower for some
specialty MCUs that are meant to run long
periods on a small battery, and generally use
the BLE RF protocol. However, since the MCU
may be in the deep-sleep mode for 90-99%
of the time, its overall power consumption is
just as important as the peak current drawn
during RF transmission/reception intervals.
Since the current is in the microamp
range and relatively steady, it might be
directly measured using a good-quality
digital multimeter on its DC current range.
Alternatively, you can insert a higher value
shunt resistor and use the multimeter's DC
millivolt range. Figure 3 is an example. One
complication that arises, however, is that
the MCU board generally executes code that
requires RF communication, and that can
happen just after the MCU is reset. It's only
later on that the MCU is placed in a deep­
sleep mode for some long sleep interval. If
you insert a digital meter in the DC current
mode in series with either of the MCU board's
power lines, one of two things will happen.
First, if you set the meter for a sensitive
current scale that accurately monitors sleep
currents in the microamp range, the voltage
drop across the meter (burden voltage) will be
so great that it's likely the MCU will not even
boot up in its standard (non-sleep) mode. This
is obviously not useful.
Second, most digital meters have DC
current ranges in both the low-milliamp
range, and a separate range that goes up to
around 10A. On this range, you must connect
one of the probe leads to a dedicated "10A"
socket on the meter. This range uses a small
internal shunt resistor, and a dedicated 10A
fuse (which, incidentally, is quite expensive).
You will need to use this range if you want the
MCU board to boot up properly, and definitely
if you expect to do any RF communication,
since that will require hundreds of milliamps
in most cases. However, this 10A range will
not measure currents in the low microamp
range that you can expect during deep sleep.
So, you can see that the extremely wide
range of current consumption—between
the peaks of RF communication and the
low current draw during deep-sleep—make
current monitoring more complicated. This is
not unexpected; there is a dynamic range of
about 104 to 105 , depending on the MCU board
and the sleep mode that you can use.
No common digital meter or oscilloscope
will accurately measure over this wide a
range without changing scales and/or using

a separate set of probe terminals (that is, the
10A meter configuration mentioned above).
Since the current is changing dynamically and
rapidly, this is not a viable option.
Over and above the limitations mentioned,
neither the 'scope nor the digital meter has a
way of integrating the current readings over
a long period of time, so you can calculate the
energy consumption of the MCU board over a
specific period. This is needed to determine
the expected life of the battery that is
powering the board.
POWER MONITOR DESIGN
In the previous section, I described ways
of measuring the current consumption of
MCUs used in loT projects (or any project, for
that matter). Neither of the two instruments—
oscilloscope or digital multimeter—would
work over the full range of current from
deep-sleep to full-power RF transmission
intervals. Likewise, they would not allow for
the integration of current over time, which
would be needed to determine how long the
supply battery would last.
In each of the methods previously
described, a shunt resistor was placed in
series with one or the other of the power
supply connections. Placing a shunt resistor
in series with the GND line allows a ground-
referenced 'scope to make the measurement,
but it also results in the MCU board's GND
terminal being offset from the mains ground.
This is assuming that the MCU board is being
powered via the USB port on a PC. This
may not be the case when the MCU board
is performing its intended function, though
it will likely be true during the development
process, for debugging and programming.
Placing the shunt resistor in series with
the Vc c connection works great when using
a digital meter, since it's a non-grounded
instrument. Also, it has no trouble measuring
the tiny voltage drop across the shunt
resistor, even though the shunt resistor has
a common-mode voltage on it of 3.3-5V, with
respect to the GND terminal.
I wanted to use one or more analog-to-
digital converters (ADCs) to measure the small
voltage drop across the shunt resistor, which,
knowing the resistance of the shunt, could then
be used to derive the current consumption. The
ADC(s) would have to be read by an MCU, which
would need to be operated from either a 3.3V
or 5V power supply. I was hoping to use just
one power supply to handle both this project's
power monitoring circuit and the target MCU
board, for which I was trying to measure the
current consumption.
Given the above design criteria, I found
that the commonly-available ADCs that I was
accustomed to using weren't able to perform
circuitcellar.com 45
a differential voltage measurement across the
shunt, when it was referenced to either GND
or the Vc c used by the target MCU board. Also,
the shunt voltage levels were too low to be
measured by any ADC that did not also include
a programmable gain amplifier (PGA). Finding
an ADC with a built-in PGA was no problem,
but getting it to work when the shunt resistor
was at either GND or Vc c was a problem.
The solution was to use a device called a
"high-side current monitor." This device uses
a low-value shunt resistor to monitor the
current, but then translates this current value
into one of two forms:
• A proportional current to GND, which,
when combined with a resistor, provides
a voltage in the millivolt-to-volt range.
This is referenced to GND, and is easy to
measure with any standard ADC.
• A digital signal (I2 C), which can be read by
an MCU, thus completely eliminating the
need for a separate ADC.
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I've used both types of high-side current O
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monitors in past projects. The latter type would U
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seem to be the simpler approach. However, N
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recall that for this project, I wanted to be able
to measure the higher operating currents drawn
by the MCU board during RF transmissions.
These high-current spikes can be very short
in duration. High-side current monitor devices
that provide an I2 C digital readout (TI's INA219,
for example), are not nearly fast enough to
monitor these current spikes. Therefore, I
decided to use the type of device that translates
the current value into a proportional current
to GND. Such devices are made by several
manufacturers. Some examples are Analog
Devices AD8217 High-Resolution Zero-Drift
Current Shunt Monitor, Texas Instruments
INA138 Variable Gain Current Sense Amplifier,
and Diodes Incorporated ZXCT1009 High-Side
Current Monitor.
I chose the ZXCT1009 because I had used
it before (when they were Zetex parts). It is a
FIGURE 4
This is the basic configuration of
the ZXCT1009 high-side current
monitoring device. It provides a
GND-referenced voltage output that
is linearly proportional to the high-
side current flowing through RSENSE .
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

three-term inal device in an SOT23 package. It operates over
the 2.5-20V range, so it is w ell-suited to this application. Not
that it m atters much in this project, but it draw s only 4pA of
current. I'll cover this in m ore detail later.
Because o f a com plication encountered (also described a
little later), I included tw o such devices in this project— one
to m easure the low deep-sleep currents, and the other to
m onitor both the higher currents norm ally draw n by the MCU
board, and the really high current spikes that occur during RF
transm ission intervals.
Figure 4 is the typical setup for the ZXCT1009 current
monitor. The designer has the choice of values for both RSENSE
and Ro U T . Obviously, it's best to choose as low a value as
possible for R SENSE , because we can't afford to lose too much
voltage between the power supply and the MCU board if we
expect the MCU board to boot up and w ork properly.
The ZXCT1009's transfer function is linear, and it's lo u t is
1.0mA when the voltage drop across RS E N S E 's 100mV. So, for
example, with RSENSE = IQ and R0 U T = IkQ, a current flow of
100mA would result in a voltage across RoUT of 1.0V. It should be
noted that the ZXCT1009 draws a quiescent current of 4pA from
the power supply, which passes through Rq UT ,
current must be factored in when doing the current calculations.
The com plication that I ran into arose from the w ide
dynam ic range of the current consum ption between deep­
sleep and RF transm ission intervals. Deep-sleep current draw
a w ide range, using only one ZXCT1009 current m onitor and
a single ADC. If R SENSE w ere chosen to be sm all enough to
drop only a few tenths of a volt during peak RF transm ission
currents, the Vo u t would be so low during deep-sleep that it
would be difficu lt to measure.
I solved the problem by using tw o ZXCT1009 current
m onitors, w ith both circu its placed in parallel and connected
between the target MCU board's Vc c line and the pow er
supply's positive term inal. Please refer to Figure 5, the
project's schem atic, for details.
The power supply in this project provides either 5.0V or an
adjustable voltage in the 2.5-4V range, which is selected by S2.
This voltage comes in via JI, and the positive line is connected to
R l, the Rsense f° r the ZXCT1009, which is labeled U2. This particular
current monitor has RSENSE = 100Q and is meant to measure a full-
scale current of 2.0mA (that is, sleep currents only).
The incom ing positive pow er supply line is also connected
to U4, an STMPS2151 high-side pow er switch. When this
electronic switch is activated, it connects the positive power
supply line to the RS ense associated with the second ZXCT1009
(U3). For this current monitor, RSENSE has a low value of 0.5Q.
so this quiescent At the m axim um design current of 500mA, a voltage drop of
only 250mV will occur across this Rs ens e- This drop is not great
enough to have any m aterial effect on the proper operation of
the target MCU board, even when it is draw ing peak currents
during RF transm ission intervals. Although RS ense is such a

could easily be in the m icroam p range, w hereas the m axim um low value, the full-scale (500mA) current range, handled by
current draw during RF transm ission could approach 500mA. this current monitor, results in a voltage at R5 of 1.175V. This
It would be difficu lt to m easure curren ts accurately over such voltage level is readily m easured by an ADC.

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FIGURE 5
Schematic diagram of the current monitoring unit, less the power supply
 circuitcellar.com

When U4 is activated, both ZXCT1009 current drawn by the target MCU board during
current m onitors are connected in parallel. RF tran sm ission s (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), I
So, you would be correct in noticing that the wanted to be able to m easure the current
current m easured by U3—the high current about every Ips. O bserving the current
m onitor— will be som ewhat lower than the true w aveform s on my 100MHz digital 'scope, I
value. This happens because a bit of current never found the current pulses to be quite this
is also passing through the RSENSE of the other sh o rt in duration during RF transm issions.
current m onitor (U2). However, since R l is 200 The ZXCT1009 current monitor, itself, has a
tim es greater than R2, the error will be only bandw idth o f 300kHz, so it w ill broaden or
0.5%, which could be corrected for in software. integrate any pulses sh o rter than Ips; but as
The only com plicating fa cto r in this long as the ADCs w ere reading the current
arrangem ent has to do w ith activating the using a Ip s sam ple rate, the overall current
STMPS2151 pow er switch. As m entioned, the consum ption over tim e w ould be captured.
low -current m onitor (U2) has an RSENSE of MCU with Internal ADC for High-Current
100Q. W henever the target MCU board exits Range: When deciding w hat MCU to use for
sleep m ode and gets re-booted, it's current this project, I chose the Teensy 4.1 MCU. It
draw is great enough to develop such a high w as well suited for my purposes fo r several
voltage drop across R SENSE that the MCU would reasons:
never boot up.
The ADC that I use for the low -current • It contains tw o 16-bit ADCs that are
range is a sigm a-delta ADS1115 16-bit ADC. capable o f a sam ple rate of 1 m egasam ple
It is not especially fast (speed is not needed per second. (Only one of its ADCs is used
fo r sleep current m easurem ents), but by the here.)
tim e the MCU reads it and notices that the • It contains 1MB of SRAM, w hich allow s me
current is much too high for the low -current to store plenty of current readings.
range, there is already too much voltage drop • Its 600MHz processor is fast enough to
to allow the MCU to boot-up properly. collect the ADC data directly, using in-line
To eliminate this issue, I placed DI, a code, w ithou t resorting to using DMA or
Schottky diode across the RS ense associated other methods.
with the low range current m onitor U2. Once • It contains a built-in m icroSD card socket,
the voltage across R l exceeds about 0.25V, DI w hich allow s the data to be stored and
conducts, thereby limiting the voltage drop in then easily tran sferred to a PC for analysis.
the circuit to 0.25V. Thus, the target MCU boots • I'm quite fa m ilia r w ith the Teensy family,
up okay, and U2 will report a current that is and it can be program m ed in the Arduino
saturated at its full-scale value of about 2.0mA. IDE— m eaning that lots o f libraries are
The p ro g ra m ru n n in g on the Teensy available.
4.1 w ill notice th is o ver-ran g e co n d itio n ,
a ctiv a te the STM PS2151 h ig h -sid e pow er For the fast, high-current range monitor, I
sw itch (U4), and re -d ire c t the c u rre n t use the Teensy's ADC #1. W hile it's rated as a
th ro u g h the h ig h -c u rre n t m o n ito r (U3). 16-bit ADC, in reality it doesn't really provide
At c u rre n ts less than the 500 m A design 16-bit accuracy and resolution. I use it in the
m axim um fo r th is p roject, the vo ltag e drop 12-bit mode, w hich is faster and provides
a cro ss R2 w ill be less than the th re sh o ld enough resolution fo r this use case. The
vo ltag e o f the S ch o ttky diode, so the d io de Teensy ADC has a full-scale voltage o f 3.3V,
w ill not a d v e rse ly a ffe c t the a ccu ra cy o f the w hich is equal to Vc c . The ADC is fed directly
h ig h -c u rre n t m o n ito r circu it. by R5 (connected to U3), a 4700 resistor. At
One disadvantage to the inclusion o f DI, 500m A, the voltage to the ADC is 1.175V, or
the Schottky diode, is that it makes a nice about 30% of the ADC's range.
feature of the pow er sw itch unusable. The The voltage developed across R3 is
STMPS2151 has several protection elem ents, proportional to the current on the high-
including therm al, over-current (>500mA) current range. Along w ith being fed to
and sh ort-circu it protection. In this project, the Teensy 4.1's ADC, it's also fed to a BNC
the pow er supply is only 5.0V, and any current connector. This allow s the target MCU board's
beyond 500m A gets shunted through DI. So, in current to be observed on a 'scope— for high-
this case, none o f the STMPS2151's protection
circu its will be effective. Still, it's nice to know
that they exist, for future projects.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHOICE OF ADCs Brian Millier runs Com puter Interface Consultants. He was an
The m easurem ent criteria that I chose instrumentation engineer in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie
fo r the project basically ruled out the use of University (Halifax, NS, Canada) for 30 years.
ju st one ADC. To m easure the sh o rt spikes of
48 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
current target board consumption, where a
'scope reading would be most useful.
External ADC for Low-Current Range: For
the low-current monitor, I wanted to be able
to measure currents in the sub-microamp
range (deep-sleep currents). By definition,
an MCU's sleep mode means that it's doing
nothing, so the sleep current is basically static.
To measure this, a much slower, but high-
resolution ADC is needed. One reason that high
resolution is needed is that the ZXCT1009 draws
approximately 4pA of quiescent current (when
no current is being drawn by the target board).
This varies according to the voltage applied to
its current sense terminals, temperature, and
device-to-device variations.
In this project, a calibration procedure
is performed at start-up. It measures
this quiescent current, and stores that
result—which is subtracted from current
measurements later on. By using a 16-bit
ADC, the quiescent current reads out as an
ADC count value around 40 counts. Therefore,
it is possible to accurately measure the target
S MCU board's current consumption down to
N
M the sub-microamp level.
U
L For this ADC, I chose the Analog Devices
O
C ADS1115, a 16-bit ADC with an internal
reference, a PGA, and a four-channel input
multiplexer. It can do both single-ended
and differential measurements on various
combinations of its four channels. In both
the single-ended and differential modes, it
is capable of accurate measurements down
around the GND potential, which is important
here because the ZXCT1009's output is
ground-referenced.
This device comes in a 3.0 x 3.0 VSSOP
package (or smaller X2QFN). I cannot mount
or handle such a package, so I'm lucky that
breakout modules are available for these
devices. I initially discovered breakout boards
for these ADCs at Adafruit. Adafruit is great
when it comes to providing driver libraries for
their breakout modules. To be fair however,
these boards are currently also available
from many other sources—even some in
FIGURE 6
The "generic" ADS1115 breakout
module that I used in this project
North America. I don't know how this works,
but such breakout modules are currently
available, in unit quantities, for less than it
would cost me to buy just the ADS115 chip,
alone. Figure 6 is the ADS1115 module I used
for this project.
In this project, I take the output of the
low-current range ZXCT1009 and filter it
somewhat with resistors R7,R8 and C2.1 then
measure it differentially using analog inputs
AO and A l.
Besides measuring the low current range,
the ADS1115 also measures the power supply
voltage feeding the target MCU board. This
is done using its A2 input and a 2:1 divider
network made up of R4 and R6. The divider
drops the 5V maximum power supply voltage
down to 2.5V maximum, which is within the
4.096V full-scale range of the ADCs A2 input
(using a PGA Gain of 1).
The ADS1115 is capable of up to 860
samples per second, which is how it is
configured in the Adafruit library. However,
I only trigger a reading every 100ms, and I
save those 10 readings/second to SRAM.
Note that in Figure 5 1 used R9, R10 as pull-
up resistors for the I 2 C bus lines. ADS1115
breakout modules generally contain I2 C pull-
ups, but I add my own just in case the module
does not include them.
For interest's sake, I recently came across
a 24-bit ADC device—the NAU7802 made by
Nuvoton. Aside from its 24-bit specification,
it also contained a PGA and a programmable
reference supply. However, what drew me to it
was the fact that it comes in a DIP16 package
that's easy for me to handle, was in stock, and
was inexpensive. I had used it in an earlier
project that measured an RTD sensor in a bridge
configuration. But in this project, I discovered
that while it has a differential input, it cannot
accurately measure small voltages that are
close to GND potential. To be fair, this chip is
designed to handle bridge-configured sensors
such as strain gauges, so this limitation is not a
deal breaker when used as recommended.
POWER SUPPLY
The power supply for the current project
is quite basic (Figure 7). Rather than taking
the easy way out and using a wall adapter, I
built a small, internal power supply. I used a
Recom RAC05E-05SKT power supply module.
It is roughly 1" in all dimensions, and provides
a stable 5V at 1A. The voltage is fed to:
• The Teensy 4.1 module via its Vjn and GND
pins. The Teensy module itself contains a
3.3V LDO which powers its ARM MCU and
associated parts.
• The Power Supply Voltage Select switch
(S2 in Figure 5).

• An LM317 adjustable analog voltage
regulator. Resistors R1 and R2, as well
as Pot R3 allow for a voltage adjustment
range of 2.5-4.0V.
The power for the target MCU board is fed
to a USB type A socket (XI). (Most of the MCU
boards I use can be powered through their
USB sockets, so this is a convenient way to get
power to the target board.) I also wire-up this
USB socket's data lines and GND to socket J2.
This allows me to feed any USB signals from
the target board through to a PC, for program
flashing and debugging purposes.
Figure 8 is the power supply board,
measurement board, and the user interface
components. The finished unit in an enclosure
is shown in Figure 9.
THE USER INTERFACE
The basic user interface is a 20 x 4-line
character LCD display to show the low-range
current, the high-range current, and the
target MCU board's power supply voltage
(either 5.0V fixed, or 2.5-4.0V adjustable). The
Teensy 4.1 in this circuit has a large number of
GPIO pins free, but I have found that it is no
more expensive to buy character LCD displays
containing a "backpack" that allows them to be
interfaced using only a 2-wire I2C connection.
So that is what I used in this project. It shares
the I 2 C bus with the ADS1115 ADC. Although
these displays require a 5V power supply,
the PCF8574 I2 C-to-parallel port bridge chip
contained on the backpack works fine with the
Teensy's 3.3V logic levels.
At power-up, the Teensy does a calibration
routine. It takes the average of many
readings on both the ADS1115 ADC (low-
current monitor range) and the Teensy's
internal 16-bit ADC (high-current monitor
range), and displays them briefly on the LCD
circuitcellar.com 49
FIGURE 7
This is a schematic diagram of the unit's power supply. It provides power for the current monitoring
circuitry, and an adjustable power supply for the target MCU board that is being monitored.
screen. These readings should be around 40
for the ADS1115, and 1-5 for the internal ADC.
If they are well outside this range, something
is wrong in the wiring, or maybe the target
MCU board is already connected, and the
C
Start/Stop measurement switch is already in O
L
the Start position. U
M
After calibration, the screen issues a N
S
prompt for the user to start the measurement
collection. The measured value of the target
board power supply (5.0V or 2.5-4.0V
adjustable) is displayed, allowing you to
adjust the voltage pot to the desired voltage.
The target MCU board would be plugged in at
this point.
After the Start/Stop switch is placed in
the Start position, the target board will be
connected to the power supply. The current
consumption data collection will begin, during
which time the display will not show the
current. The reason for this is that the high-
current range sampling rate is one reading
per microsecond, which is much too fast to
FIGURE 8
These are the two boards making
up the project, along with the LCD,
switches, and other components of
the user interface.
50 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392

Time (ms) High-current Range (mA) Low-current Range (mA) separate segm ent o f SRAM. At this slow rate,
there is enough m em ory in this segm ent to
collect data for m ore than 200,000 seconds,
but in practice, I lim it this to 4,000 seconds.
If a collection runs long enough to
TABLE 1
overflow the m em ory arrays for either the
This is the format of the data that display. Each of these high-current range low- or high-current ranges, I term inate the
is stored on the SD card as file readings is processed as follows: collection and do the calculations for that
"CurrentMonitor.txt". elapsed tim e period. The sam e thing occurs
• Each reading is com pared to previous when the user sw itches the Start/Stop sw itch
m axim um values, and the overall to the Stop position.
m axim um value is stored and displayed at At the end of the collection, the LCD
the end of the collection. displays three things: the maximum current
• Every reading is accum ulated and used to measured by the high-current monitor; the
derive the energy consum ption over the integrated current (over run time) of the high-
collection period in m illiam p-seconds. current m onitor (in milliamp-seconds); and
• Every 1ms, the average current over that the integrated current (over time) of the low-
tim e interval is stored in the Teensy's current m onitor (in microampere-seconds). I
SRAM. Due to m em ory constraints, the also display the elapsed tim e from Start to Stop.
m axim um duration o f the high-current To analyze the current versus tim e profile,
readings is 200 seconds (200,000 samples). I m ounted a m icroSD card in the Teensy's
socket before pow ering-up the unit. At the
During the portion of the collection tim e end of data collection, all the data is stored to
that the current consum ption is < 2mA, the this card using the filenam e "CurrentM onitor.
S low -current range circu itry is employed. txt." W henever a new collection is made,
N
M Currents in this range are generally MCU sleep any existing CurrentM onitor.text file is
U
L current, and as such, are quite stable. So, I overw ritten. The form at of the data in this file
O
C take only 10 readings per second, and save is in Table 1.
each of these in the Teensy's SRAM. These When a zero appears in either the high- or
low -current range readings are stored in a low -range colum n, it m eans that the alternate
range w as active at that p a rticu la r tim e. Note
that on the m icroSD card file, all accum ulated
current readings are expressed in m illiam ps,
regardless of w hich range is active.

SOFTWARE
The Teensy firm w are w as w ritten using
the A rduino IDE (Version 1.8.19) and the
Teensyduino add-in (version 1.57). Both w ere
the latest versions at the tim e of this w riting.
I use the A rduino "LiquidCrystal_PCF8574"
lib ra ry to run the LCD screen, and A d afru it's
"Adafruit_ADS1015" library handles both the
ADS1015 and ADS1115 ADCs.
I discovered a bug in the Adafruit_ADS1015
library. When you call readADC_
the
D iffe r e n t ia l_ O _ l( ) function, it sets the
FIGURE 9 sample rate for the ADC to 860 samples per second
This is the finished unit. Because the SD card socket is part of the Teensy 4.1 module (inside the
(the highest rate). However, it uses a delay routine
case), I used an SD card extender cable/socket assembly to expose the socket outside the cabinet.
to wait out the interval between when the ADC is
triggered and when the conversion is complete.
The delay variable m _ c o n v e rs io n D e la y is
Additional materials from the author are available at:
not initialized in this routine, and if you have
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials
previously used the re a d A D C _ S in g le E n d e d ()
function (which I do when reading the power
RESOURCES
supply voltage), the delay time will be set to
Analog Devices | www.analog.com
180ms. This is much too long a delay period for
Diodes Incorporated | www.diodes.com
an 860 samples per second conversion rate, so
Espressif | www.espressif.com I had to add the following line to the Adafruit_
PJRC | www.pjrc.com ADS1015.cpp file at line #223:
R.ECOM Power | www.recom-power.com
STMicroelectronics | www.st.com m _ c o n v e r s io n D e la y = 5;
 circuitcellar.

Note that this 5ms delay is still too long for CONCLUSION
an 860 sam ples per second conversion rate. I w as a lre a d y fa m ilia r w ith both the
However, I am only taking 10 readings per D iodes In co rp o ra te d ZXCT1009 h ig h -sid e
second, and this delay w orks fine at that rate. c u rre n t m o n ito r and the S T M ic ro e le c tro n ic s
All newer versions of Teensyduino contain STM PS2151 h ig h -sid e sw itch w hen I
the SD.h file, which is associated with the d esig n ed the project. However, I in itia lly
newest SDFat library. This updated SD card a tte m p te d to use the Nuvoton NAU7802
library will handle the newer HC SD cards, and ADC fo r the lo w -c u rre n t range, in p a rt fo r
allows the use of filenam es longer than the old its DIP16 packag e and 2 4 -b it re so lu tio n . As
DOS 8.3 filename format. m en tio n ed earlier, its in a b ility to m easu re
I've mentioned earlier that the Teensy 4.1 d iffe re n tia l v o lta g e s near GND to o k me a
contains 1MB of SRAM. This m em ory is broken w h ile to fig u re out, so I had to redesig n
into two blocks: a high-speed 512KB block that using the A d a fru it ADS1115 ADC m odule.
is directly connected to the ARM MCU; and a T h is is one o f the re a so n s I seldom design
som ewhat slower 512KB block that is tailored to a p ro je ct using a PCB rig h t fro m the sta rt.
DMA operations, though it is still accessible by T h e re are alw a ys th in g s I fail to a n ticip a te ,
the ARM MCU. in advan ce o f actu a l testin g.
Because of this memory fragmentation, I had This project does a decent job m onitoring
to place the high-current range memory array in both deep-sleep and operating currents fo r
one block, and the low-current range in the other. the com m on loT boards w hich I design and
The high-current readings are stored at a rate of build. Ironically, ju st a fte r w ritin g this article,
1,000/s, whereas the low-current readings are I w as asked to review the Joulescope JS220
stored at only 10/s. Due to the allocation of other Precision DC Analyser by Jetperch. It's a m ore
variables in the high-speed block, there was only sophisticated com m ercial produt and the
room to store 200,000 16-bit ADC values (for the JS220 has a much greater dynam ic current
high-current range). The second block, used for m easurem ent range than my unit. It also
the low-current range, had plenty of room to com es w ith very sophisticated softw are.
spare, since those readings are only collected at Check out my next article for my review of
a 10 samples per second rate. this product.

AV NET

/DELIVERINGWHAT'S NEXT
Launching new technology is more complex than ever.
Wherever you are in your journey, we're here to help
you navigate today's design and supply chain challenges.
Whether you're just starting on a design or working to get
your product to market, Avnet delivers the right mix of
technology and expertise to help your business succeed.
We deliver what's next in design, supply chain and logistics
so you can deliver what's next for all of us. avnet.com/dwn
52 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
From the Bench
Seeing Through the Fog
Using BLE Advertisement to
Determine Location
By
Jeff Bachioa
S
N
M
U You can use Bluetooth Low Energy's (BLE's) advertisement ability to help
L
O determine where you are in your world. In this article I cover how to do that.
C
Identity and signal strength can give clues.
hen I hear the word "beacon," I
visualize standing at the taffrail
on the afterdeck of a ship, in a
sea so thick with fog that it looks
as if I am staring at a white wall on all sides.
If you've ever closed your eyes and attempted
to cross a crowded room, you know that there
is anxiety with each step. Not knowing what's
out there or where you are can be debilitating.
Lighthouses were established to give ships
a point on which they could depend. When
the area is dangerous, multiple beacons
of light were often used to triangulate
position. This type of beacon doesn't present
much information, though, other than the
identifying light pattern that is unique to each
lighthouse.
For this column, I have a completely
different kind of beacon in mind. Although
it's been in use for years, we don't hear
much about the Bluetooth beacon these
days. A Bluetooth beacon is a small, battery-
powered radio transmitter. Smartphones
can scan and display their transmitted
signals. As of version 4.0 of the Bluetooth
Core Specification [1], a new alternative
materialized which would take advantage
of the already established transport system
to provide a brief, low-power, one-to-many,
connectionless broadcast. The design assigns
different capabilities and responsibilities to
different devices, depending on the size of
their available power supply, such that those
with plenty of power do more of the work than
those devices running on coin-cell batteries.
The simplest form of Bluetooth Low Energy
(BLE) performsa connectionless communication
using a procedure called "advertising."
"Legacy advertising" uses three channels from
the 2.4GHz radio band—specifically channels
37, 38 and 39. Connectionless communication
means the devices will not keep an established
communication channel open, which is usually
required for the transmission of large amounts
of data. Instead, an advertiser will send a
payload with no more than 31 octets (bytes).
You can see that not much information can be
transferred by this packet. Because packets
are not acknowledged, if this transmission
were lost or had errors, no one would know
(or care).
Like Bluetooth Classic, devices take on
either a client or a server function. Those BLE
devices that initiate an advertisement are
considered the server, and anyone listening is
the client. In the simplest form, a BLE beacon
might have only a transmitter. Therefore,
it can only be a server of information. That

information consists of a standard advertising
packet (Figure 1).
SIMPLE ADVERTISING
The Bluetooth transmission format is
frequency shift keying (FSK ). This simple
transmission scheme uses dual frequencies to
indicate data, as opposed to amplitude shift
keying (ASK), where the transmission scheme
uses one frequency to indicate data. The FSK
receiver determines the data transition point
by averaging the two frequencies. It can do
this as long as the two frequencies continue to
alternate. When a byte consists of all zeros or
ones, the average is skewed, and the receiver
can lose synchronization and misinterpret
the data. To prevent that, the data packet is
processed with a "whitening algorithm." This
assures that there will not be more than four
repeated bits. This must be decoded by the
receiver, to return the string of data back into
its original content. I invite you to read more
on this process [2] if it interests you.
We'll be using "non-connectable
advertising (0x2x)," which is indicated via
the MSNibble in the PDU type of the header
(Figure 1). This advertising type announces
that it is neither scannable nor connectable
(has no additional scan data and can not
accept a connection). The length value in the
header will indicate the amount of data we
are sending in the payload. Our data must
contain some identifier as to what is being
sent. The format for one piece of data is a
minimum of three bytes, where the first byte
(length of data) will be at least 0x02 (for two
additional bytes). The second byte (first data
byte) is the attribute type from the Generic
Access Profile (GAP) list. The third byte (or
additional bytes) depends on the GAP. Some
useful attributes are shown in Table 1.
I want to create a beacon that will send
out two pieces of information—a beacon
name, and the TX power level with which the
beacon is configured. With these, I should be
able to identify the beacon, and depending on
the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI),
determine how far away I might be from the
beacon. This isn't an exact science, due to
variables such as environment and antenna
design, but we can make a good guess. Let's
circuitcellar.com 53
f i g ur e 1
create a beacon and use a smartphone app to The standard BLE advertising packet
scan for it. consists of a 1-byte Preamble (to
synchronize the receiver), a 4-byte C
O
Access Address (for an advertiser L
ROOM BEACON U
M
this is 0x8E89BED6), 33 bytes of
There are two ways to implement N
S
Data (which include a 1-byte header
Bluetooth: with a dedicated Bluetooth module, byte and a 1-byte length of the data
or a microcontroller that contains a Bluetooth included), plus a 3-byte CRC. [3]
peripheral. I've been using an ESP32 for quite
a few years, but up until this project I had
not used the integrated Bluetooth function.
There are example apps that demonstrate
using the ESP32 as an iBeacon and Eddystone
beacon. The iBeacon was developed about
10 years ago by Apple and is a proprietary,
closed protocol. AltBeacon, URIBeacon, and
Eddystone all are open source, and were
developed a few years later in an attempt to
compete with and improve on the iBeacon. All
use the BLE transmission scheme but have
slightly different protocols.
Unless your info falls into one of the
assigned attributes of the GAP, you'll find the
attribute "OxFF, Manufacturer Data" the most
useful. Note that Apple uses this in the iBeacon
protocol. Their standard packet contains two
attributes, as shown in Table 2.
Apple's custom manufacturer data includes
its manufacturer ID and an additional sub­
attribute, which contains an ID number (UUID)
TABLE 1
These are a few attribute types you
might find in an advertising packet.
Multiple attributes can be packed
into the data portion of the packet
[4].
54 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
plus indications of the software's major and
minor revisions and the transm itter's power.
For this project, my advertising packet will
consist of three attributes—flags, name,
and custom manufacturing data (Table 3).
The flags are an indication of the Bluetooth
function, Classic or BLE, discoverable or
connectable. The name is the actual name
of the beacon (in my case, the room it is
installed in). My custom manufacturing data
will simply be OxFFFF (testing or unregistered
manufacturer), and the battery voltage is a
whole data byte followed by a decimal data
byte.
Using the Arduino IDE, we can program the
ESP32 to become a beacon with very little work.
As the iBeacon.ino example states (available
on www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials)
there are six steps to the application: create
the BLE server, create some advertising data,
start advertising, wait, stop advertising, and
go to sleep. As always with my projects, I add
many lines of debugging code and use the
my Debug variable's bits to enable/disable
S serial output with progress reports and data
N
M values. These can be dynamically altered via
U
L user input, but generally are just preset prior
O
C to programming as wanted.
TABLE 2
The iBeacon advertising data payload contains two attributes—a flag attribute and a Manufacturer Data
attribute.
The application begins by declaring a
few items: first, the BLE libraries used,
B LE D evice .h and BLEBeacon.h; then the
variables, used like an array to define the
advertising data and the length of that data
(Listing 1). Note that this is in the form of
Table 2 and Table 3.
In the s e tu p O function, the I/O is
initialized so we can blink an LED and read
an analog input. The analog input is actually
a fraction of the battery voltage provided
by a resistor divider, since the voltage
will generally be higher than VCC. A BLE
device's environment is initialized with the
function B LED evice: : i n i t ( ). Then the
s e tB e a c o n O function allows you to set the
advertising data.
We need to substitute the actual TXPower
byte and the battery voltage whole and
decimal bytes with those place keepers
defined earlier in b e a c o n A rra y [].
b e a c o n A rra y [2] = oBeacon.
g e tS ig n a lP o w e r();
b e a c o n A rra y [b e a c o n A rra y L e n g th -2 ]
= batV;
b e a c o n A rra y [ b e a c o n A rra y L e n g th -l]
= batD;
With the advertising data updated, it can
be transferred to the advertising environment.
We can now start an advertisement, pause for
it to complete, and stop advertising.
p A d v e r t ! s in g - > s t a r t ( );
del a y (100);
p A d v e r t!s in g - > s to p ();
We're through with the work, and we can
now go to sleep. This is done so that a beacon
can be run on a battery and the ESP32 will
expend minimal energy. We want the beacon
to wake up periodically and advertise, so it
is sent into deep sleep along with a duration.
e sp _ d e e p _ sle e p (1 0 0 0 0 0 0 L L * GPIO
DEEP_SLEEP_DURATION);
This is the number of microseconds
you want it to sleep. Using the factor
1,000,000 allows my variable GPIO_DEEP_
SLEEP_DURATION to indicate a number of
seconds. The longer you let it sleep between
advertisements, the longer a battery will last;
but it also affects how often the beacon can
be heard.
Assuming you've programmed an ESP32
board with this code, how can you know it's
actually sending out your packet? Go to the
Apps Store on your smartphone, and install
"nRF Connect for Mobile." This app allows you
to scan for beacons, and should show your
 circuitcellar.com

beacon—but don't be surprised if you see active is 75mA. If it advertised continuously,

other things popping up. You should at least the beacon would last for 2,700mA-h/75ma =
see something like this: 36 hours, or a day and a half.
There is a big difference between a day
Ki tch e n and a month. So the repetition rate for
x x :x x :x x :x x :x x :x x transmissions can make a big difference
Not Bonded -lOOdBm in how long this particular battery will last
before it needs recharging. If we wait just one
If you tap on this device and then on second between advertisements instead of
"RAW," you should see the full advertising transmitting continuously, we can double the
packet: battery life. In this project the beacons are
"plugged in," so battery life is not an issue.
Raw data: TABLE 3
Length: 0x02
My advertising data payload contains
0x020AF208094B6974636856E05FFFFFF0005 Type OxOA TXPower three attributes: TXPower, Name,
and Manufacturer Data attributes.
Value: Ox?? in dBm
Details:

Length Type Value Length: 0x08

2 OxOA 0xF2
0x09 Name
8 0x09 0x4B69746368656E
5 OxFF 0xFFFF0005 Value: 0x4B K
0x69
I was curious about the current draw when
0x74
the device goes into deep sleep. To measure
this, I placed a IQ resistor in series with a Li- 0x63
Ion battery running the ESP32. Figure 2 is the 0x68
current of the ESP32 transmitting beacon. The
0x65 e
total active time is approximately one second.
The actual transm itter ON time is ~500ms. 0x6E n
During that time, the circuit is drawing 150mA
of current. Before the transm itter is enabled, Length 0x05
the current is ~75mA. After the transm itter
has been disabled, the draw is ~50mA. Deep Custom Manufacturer
Type OxFF
sleep looks to be only a few milliamps—let's Data
say four. Value: Manufacturer ID LSB
A typical 18650 Li-Ion battery can supply OxFF (test or unregistered
about 10 watt-hours (W-h). If we use the 3.7V company code)
rating of this battery, that's roughly 10Wh/3.7V
OxFF Manufacturer ID MSB
= 2.7A-h or 2,700mA-h. So this beacon—if it
just sat in deep sleep—would last for 2,700mA- Battery Voltage
Ox??
h/4mA = 675 hours, or about a month. At (Whole number)
this point we haven't even sent out a single Battery Voltage
advertisement. The average current draw while Ox??

/ / p a c k e t must not be > 32 c h a r a c te r s

/ / t y p e ,1 e n g th , data
byte beaconArrayE ] =

0x02, OxOA, 0x00, // TX Power

0x08, 0x09, <K>, < i’ , ‘ t ’ , ‘ c ’ , ‘ h ’ , ‘ e ’ , ‘ n ’ , // Com plete Local name
0x05, OxFF, OxFF, OxFF, 0x00, 0x00 // T e s tin g M a n u fa ctu re r & B a tte r y V o lta g e
} >

u in t 8 _ t beaco n A rrayLen g th = s iz e o f( b e a c o n A r r a y );

LISTING 1
The data packet payload is defined as an array in the Arduino code. This array has three attribute types: the TX power level, the complete local name, and the manufacturer­
specific data (in this case the battery level). Note that each attribute has its own data length.
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
ESP32 RECEIVER
Now, let's ditch the phone and put together
a beacon receiver. This time I will use a Heltec
HTIT-WB32 board. Not only does it have a
display, but it also has charging circuitry for
a Li-Ion battery. This application requires five
more libraries—an additional four for the BLE
scanning, and a Heltec library for the display.
After defining some arrays to hold the
raw packets and individual variables like
beaconNameE], beaconTXPowerEJ,
and beaconBatteryE], the setu p O
function initializes the display and displays
"Scanning..." For the scanning to happen, we
must initialize the environment as before, and
FIGURE 2
To measure the current I looked at the voltage across a IQ resistor in series with the battery. Maximum
current is ~150mA when the circuit is transmitting a BLE advertisement. The average current for ~1
second is 75mA. Idle current is a few milliamps.
FIGURE 3
This is a photo of one of myBeacons plugged into a cell phone charger cube. Note that the micro USB
male-to-USB typeA male adapter makes a clean connection between myBeacon and the cube 5V supply.
Additional materials from the author are available at:
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials
References [1] to [4] as marked in the article can be found there.
Resources
Espressif | www.espressif.com
initialize a callback function that will run upon
completion of a scan for beacons.
BL EDe v i c e :: i n 11 (“ ” );
pBLEScan = BLEDevice::getScan();
//cre a te new scan cl a s s : :method
pBLEScan-
> setA dvertisedD evi ceCal lbacks(new
M yA dvertisedD eviceC al1b a cks());
Note that the new function
M yAdvertisedD evi cesCal 1b a ck () will
be executed after any scan. This function
checks the manufacturerData attribute for
OxFFFF and rejects any beacons that use a
different ID. It then looks for a nameData
attribute, saves a copy of the entire
advertising packet, and increments the
variable beaconCount.
The lo o p O function is where the work
gets done. With everything in place, we
request a scan, with the variable scanTime
equal to how long we want to scan for beacons
before returning.
BLEScanResults foundDevices =
pBLEScan->start(scanTim e, fa ls e );
When the scan returns, we can
check beaconCount to see if any
beacons were found. Remember that
m yAdvertizedDeviceCal 1back() has
already been called before the scan's return,
so the raw scan data has been broken down
into friendly arrays. Any beacons found are
displayed on the display as "Name @ RSSI."
Since this is an indication of signal strength,
it implies distance. If all transm itters are the
same, the smaller the number, the closer you
are to the beacon. This value will depend on
antenna orientation and environment, so as I
said before, it's not an absolute science.
DISTANCE
Keeping in mind the orientation and
environment caveat, we can calculate
distance from the RSSI. To do this we must
measure the RSSI at lm . I did this and set it
as a constant in the application.
const f lo a t mydBm = -70;
The equation I am using for determining
distance is:
D = 10 (mydBm - RSSI) / (10 * N)
where N = 2
N is an environmental constant that might
range from two to four. So you can calculate
a distance to each discovered beacon. You can
choose to display RSSI or distances on the

display. These calculations also go to the serial
port. Here is the code for that calculation:
beaconDistanceEil = pow(10,((mydBm -
float(beaconRSSIEi]))/(10.00 * N)));
TESTING
I programmed three ESP32 boards as
beacons, and plugged them into charger
cubes in my kitchen, living room, and dining
room (Figure 3). The last ESP32 board
was programmed to display any received
beacons, along with their converted distance
measurements. Figure 4 shows the HTIT-
WB32 receiving two of the beacons from the
front foyer (between the living room and the
dining room). I seemed to be too far from the
kitchen beacon at this time. I began to pick
up the kitchen beacon as I moved toward the
dining room. Standing in one location, I found
that the distances wander around quite a
bit. Just when a distance seemed to be fairly
accurate, the next reading could be off by 50%.
I wasn't going to be able to triangulate with any
reasonable accuracy. I could, however, easily
tell which room I was in.
These kinds of beacons are generally used
with a phone app that recognizes when you
are approaching an area. In a museum, your
app might give you an audio message about
the artist. In a grocery store, you might be
notified that a particular product is on sale. At
a bus stop, the beacon might tell you how long
you will be waiting for the next bus. Approach
your front door beacon, and your phone could
instruct the door to unlock, or lock the door
when you leave.
I want my robots to be able to recognize
which room they're in, so they can better
plot their way around my house. Bluetooth
beacons seem like a pretty simple way of
allowing this. While pinpoint accuracy is not
possible, many users pigeonhole the results
into one of three regions based on the RSSI—
immediate (less than 0.5m), near (~2m), and
far (~30m). These descriptions seem to offer
useful information to an application.
THE PERFECT BEACON
When a beacon must be battery-powered,
you'd probably like at least a year of service.
It's obvious this ESP32 isn't going to fit
the bill. The ESP32 touts lOpA as its deep­
sleep current draw, so the few milliamps
I measured must be coming from other
circuitry on the board. I realize that this
particular circuit may not have been designed
for extremely low power, and if you wanted,
you might redesign it for lower idle currents.
The idle current is important, but the time the
application is running has a bigger affect on
battery life.
circuitcellar.com 57
FIGURE 4
Obviously, the more code you have, the The portable Bluetooth receiver C
longer it will take to run. So on the plus side, (Heltec HTIT-WB32) displays received
O
L
you can whittle down and strip off unnecessary U
beacon advertisements, along with M
code, or even write in machine language either the RSSI or an estimated N
S
instead of a higher-level language, to make distance. In the foyer I am receiving
the code more efficient. You may be able to two of the three beacons; the kitchen
optimize the power-up (reset) circuitry for fast beacon seems to be out of range at
starts. On the negative side, you can't speed this location.
up the transmit time. And though you could
transmit with a lower TX Power, this might
reduce the transmission current by only 20mA.
Unless you want to design from scratch,
you are left with choosing a system that
works best for you. And by that, I mean you
will most likely have to trade power for ease
of development. I have found some pre-built
beacons that are very low in power, but the
tools necessary for using them are just not
the friendliest.
In many cases, a beacon will be operated
in an area without power, so the point is
moot. Your application will determine the
lengths you'll need to go to make it all work. I
hope you'll find a use for this (relatively) low-
power Bluetooth technology. It's easy to get
started, and the ESP32 is fun to work with.
Everything takes time, and there's just too
little of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Bachiochi (pronounced BAH-key-AH-key)
has been writing for Circuit Cellar since 1988.
His background includes product design and
manufacturing. You can reach him at:
jeff.bachiochi@imaginethatnow.com, or at:
www.imaginethatnow.com.
58 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
PRODUCT NEWS by Stephen Vicinanza
Ideal Power Launches Its First Power Module Aimed at the Solid-State Circuit
Breaker Market
Ideal Power launches its firs t power module aimed at
the solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB) m arket. The SymCool
Power Module is a m ulti-die, Bi-Directional Bi-Polar Junction
Transistor (B-TRAN) module rated at 1200V 100A, and
featuring double-sided cooling.
The design is meant to meet the low conduction loss
needs of the SSCB m arket. B-TRAN is a p ro p rie ta ry patented
semiconductor power switch used in the SymCool Power
Module. The new power modules are designed fo r us in parallel
arrangem ents th a t can achieve a w ider range fo r high power
applications in u tility, industrial, and m ilita ry applications.
Ideal Power's President and CEO Dan Brdar said, "We
believe our SymCool Power Module is well-suited for the large,
growing circuit breaker market, w ith the market projected to
grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 6%
to approximately $26 billion by 2027. With clear advantages
over electromechanical, IGBT, and MOSFET-based breakers, we
believe B-TRAN enabled SSCBs are ideal fo r a range of utility,
m ilitary, and industrial power control applications. Today's
introduction is a tremendous achievement fo r our entire team
and marks the realization of our vision fo r our bidirectional,
low-loss power semiconductor architecture. We look forw ard
to our firs t commercial sales later in 2023 as we execute our
B-TRAN product roadmap."
"The introduction of our firs t commercial product marks a
pivotal development for Ideal Power's B-TRAN technology, and
S we could not be more excited," stated Brdar, "The SymCool
W Power Module was designed specifically to enable SSCBs to
E
N
T deliver very low conduction losses. B-TRAN-enabled SSCBs are
C
U
D
O
R
P
Gunnir1 MXM Form-Factor Intel Arc A380 GPU for Desktops
Gunnir launched an MXM fo rm -fa cto r Intel Arc A380 GPU
aimed at desktops. Gunnir is the only m anufacturer that
exclusively produces Intel-based graphics cards.
The mobile form factor LM-A380-6G MXM 3.1 Type-A
modules come w ith an excess of VRAM and 6GB of GDDR6
memory, designed to suit applications in notebooks, embedded
applications, and desktops in p ro p rie ta ry form factors.
NEW PRODUCT SUBMISSIONS— E-mail: product-editor@circuitcellar.com
-JI Illi
' P AMO12IOC1O
expected to be smaller and more
efficient than SSCBs using traditional
semiconductor switches while
operating orders of magnitude faster
than conventional electromechanical
breakers."
During usage, circuit breakers
are constantly conducting electrical current. It's critical to
keep conduction losses to a m inim um . The SymCool Power
Module shows dram atic reductions in conduction losses. This
makes the modules suitable fo r the constant high voltage of
a large electrical grid, as it reduces energy waste—crucial to
wind and solar distribution grids.
Key features include:
• Bi-directionality, which equates to fewer switches. The
SymCool allows flow in both directions, rather than ju st the
uni-directional capabilities of the IGBTs, which are single­
sided.
• Advanced packaging. There is dual-sided cooling and built-
in tem perature sensing. This allows heat dissipation from
both the top and bottom of the module.
Aging infrastructure m ust be upgraded. There is thus a
need fo r advanced system circu itry in renewable energy, EV
technology, m icrogrids, energy storage, u tility transm ission
and distribution, and railway systems. The SymCool Power
Module promises to address this need.
Ideal Power Inc. | idealpower.com
The Intel Arc A380 is a desktop-grade graphics card based
on the ACM-G11 GPU w ith eight Xe cores or 1024 stream
processors. The 6GB m em ory is connected through a 9 6 -b it
interface. Its eight Xe cores means it's likely faster than the
Arc A370, which sported 4GB VRAM and a 6 4 -b it m em ory
interface.
In the wide w orld of gaming GPUs, there is little call fo r
MXM modules, as most gaming laptops come w ith soldered-
down GPUs that use VRAM. There are ju s t tw o companies
making p ro p rie ta ry GPU modules, Dell and Alienware, and
ju s t a few models come w ith the modules.
The MXM 3.1 Type-A modules mean there could be a move
to address embedded machines and desktops.
The LM-A380-6G is rated at 75W therm al board power.
This is an overheated unit fo r a m ainstream laptop but is still
suitable fo r embedded applications and some desktops.
The most exciting feature here is its video capabilities.
The modules could find uses in Digital Signage.
The Gunnir Arc A380 6GB MXM 3.1 is available now and
runs $260-$286 w itho u t VAT. The modules are intended fo r
ultra-com pact desktops and embedded applications, which
helps ju s tify the unit's higher cost of a standard desktop Arc
A380.
Gunnir | gunnir.cn

Versalogic's Sabertooth HPC Has 9th Gen Coffee Lake Processors
Versalogic released the Sabertooth, an HPC w ith 9th
Gen Coffee Lake processors. The Sabertooth is a high-
perform ance com puter th a t uses Xeon-E and 9th-generation
Intel Core processors, a 3-Bank Type 1 expansion port, and
error-correcting memory.
The Sabertooth also includes TPM 2.0 security, onboard
NVMe SSD storage, and up to 32 GB ECC RAM. The high-
peformance processors come w ith either a Hex-Core Xeon-E
or quad-core i3.
Three Automated Test Equipment Lines for Semiconductors from Xilinx
Xilinx has three automated test equipm ent lines for
semiconductors. The three areas th a t Xilinx focuses on for
next-gen SoC testing cover: SoC and storage testers, semi-
ATE: image acquisition, and semi-ATE: PIN electronics.
SoC and Storage Testers: The Versal architecture gives
system designers perform ance, power-optim ized hard IP,
and fle xib ility th a t are exclusive to Xilinx. DSP engines and
A l engines, available in the Versal Premium ACAPs, provide
unmatched signal processing capacity. These devices feature
on/off-chip m em ory bandwidth at higher speeds, plus 7.5M
system logic cells in the Adaptable Engines th a t play a critical
role in providing ATE the fle xib ility necessary fo r custom IP,
m onitoring functionality, and tra ffic generation.
Additionally, the scalable 112G PAM4 transceivers and
power-optim ized Hard IP are engineered to enable the most
popular interface standards,
including a variety of perform ance
options and features. Some of
the likely candidates fo r such
systems measurements are the
400G High-Speed Crypto Engines,
600G Ethernet MAC, Integrated
PCIe Gen5 Blocks, DDR Memory
controller, and more.
Semi-ATE: Image Acquisition:
Xilinx offers the Kintex UltraScale+
to cover the need for high-
performance transceivers and DSP
NEW PRODUCT SUBMISSIONS— E-mail: product-editor@circuitcellar.com
circuitcellar.com 59
PRODUCT NEWS
The device has a 3-Bank Expansion port fo r PCIe x l6 Gen
3 expansion. Additionally, it has onboard high-speed 128GB
NVMe fast read/w rite SSD storage.
The Sabertooth design is a rugged PC-104 embedded
com puter featuring high bandwidth 3-Bank expansion
interface. The connector fo r the expansion supports high­
speed peripherals, GPU devices, or com puter-offload, that
require up to 16 high-speed PCIe lanes.
Meant fo r computing at the edge, the Sabertooth has a
high bandwidth bus, which can be fu rth e r expanded w ith I/O
such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet FPGAs and GPU boards. Interfaces
include a PCIe Gen 3 x l6 bus w ith bifurcation, four PCIe x l,
tw o USB 2.0, and SMB ports.
Hyper-Threading on the Xeon-E models adds to the power
of the system. The system includes high-speed SSD storage
and up to 32GB of RAM which is error-correcting in the Xeon-E
versions. Both versions of the Sabertooth are well-suited to
applications in energy applications, security, medical, sm art
security, and defense.
Its operating tem perature range is -40°C all the way
up to +85°C, and it meets the MIL-STD-202H shock and
vibrations specifications. There are also lathing connectors
fo r challenging environm ents and hostile locations.
Versalogic is w arranting the Sabertooth fo r 10+ years as a
sign of high reliab ility and long term scalable use.
Versalogic | versalogic.com
P
R
O
D
capability for Image Acquisition. The system also keeps power U
C
T
consumption and device cost low. The cost-sensitive nature of N
this application requires special attention to power consumption. E
W
The Kintex UltraScale has a solid price/perform ance/ S
w a tt balance delivering a cost-effective solution fo r high-
end capabilities that include support fo r such systems as
6.3 TeraMACs of DSP compute performance, PCIe Gen 4x8,
2.6Gbs DDR4, and 32Gbps transceivers.
Semi-ATE: PIN Electronics: For vector generation and
analysis, there is a need fo r cost-effective FPGAs to address
PIN Electronics. This would also include a large number of
high-perform ance I/Os to connect to a greater number of
ASSPs w ith th e ir parallel interfaces. There is also a need fo r
sophisticated I/O buffers and more capable clock generation
and distribution given the lG b/s+ link speed, fewer reference
clocks, and unfriendly channel, to
manage skew across m ultiple lanes
and over PVT.
The Kintex UltraScale+ FPGAs have
feature-rich SelectIO transceivers
and are high-performance. The
SlectIO transceivers have signal
conditioning capabilities, PLL and
DLL-based clock generation as well
as distribution resources. These are
enhanced with skew management
capabilities.
Xilinx | xilinx.com
CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
NXP's High-Performance MCU Series for Automobiles
NXP is offering a high-performance microcontroller (MCU)
series aimed at the automobile industry. The announcement
was made close to the Matter smart home standard launch,
and so was somewhat pushed into the background. The
S32K39 series of MCUs are automobile industry-facing and
optimized for electric vehicle (EV) control applications.
This series of MCUs offers a more up-to-date high-speed
and high-resolution control system. The overall effect is to
increase power efficiency and extend the driving range, as
well as provide for a smoother overall driving experience.
The S32K39 MCUs provide networking and security, but
also functional safety that rises above traditional automotive
MCUs. This specifically addresses the zonal vehicle E/E
architectures and software-defined vehicles.
The battery management system (BMS) and the EV
power inverters provide an end-to-end solution for the next
generation of EVs.
The series of high-performance MCUs are optimized for
intelligent and high-precision control of traction inverters.
These traction inverters convert the EV's battery DC power to
AC to drive the latest EV traction motors.
The S32K39 MCUs support the
conventional isulated-gate bipolar
transistors (IGBT), but also silicon
carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN)
technologies. There are dual 200 kHz
loops that improve power efficiency. These
provide smaller, lighter, more efficient
GigaDevice Launches 1st Gen Wi-Fi MCUs to Enhance Wireless Security in AIoT
GigaDevice launched 1st Gen Wi-Fi Microcontrollers (MCUs)
to enhance wireless security in Artificial-Intelligence-of-Things
(AIoT). The GD32W515 MCU is the latest member of the Arm
Cortex-M33 core MCU portfolio.
These new MCUs have a higher baseband and RF
performance, and built-in Trustzone architecture for extended
reliability in hardware execution environments for secure data
storage. This continues a high standard for the GD32 MCU family
with solid compatibility between software and hardware. The
GD32W515 products offer wireless connectivity development
options for a variety of applications in smart homes.
Additionally, the GD32W515 is suited for industrial loT and
consumer electronics. The company feels that with enhanced
processing capabilities and features that offer rich integration
options, designs for those applications can be simplified.
The GD32W515 continues the GD32 series use of the Arm
Cortex M-33 core, integrated with a 2.4GHz single-stream
IEEE 802.11b/g/n MAC/
Baseband/RF radio
frequency module on-
chip. The Arm Cortex
M-33 core is based on
the latest Arm v8-M
ISA, and supports DSP
instruction extension,
as well as a single­
precision floating-point
arithmetic unit (FPU).
The GD32W515 series
NEW PRODUCT SUBMISSIONS— E-mail: product-editor@circuitcellar.com
inverters, which allow motors to deliver longer driving range.
The S32K39 MCUs can also control six-phase motors with
increased power density, and higher fault tolerance which
improve reliability over the long term, which lengthens life
cycles for the electronic components—an aid in the fight for
better overall EV reliability in winter and shorter car lifespans.
It comes with a safe ASIL D software resolver, along
with integrated sigma-delta and sine wave converters which
eliminate the need for external components and reduces the
overall cost of the system.
This MCUs versatile architecture makes it ideal for other
EV applications including the battery management system
(BMS), which is an NXP proprietary system, onboard charging
(OBC), and DC/DC conversion. The series is designed to
support hardware isolation, time-sensitive networking, and
advanced cryptography, and it supports zonal architectures
and software-defined vehicles.
Says Allan Mcauslin of NXP, "The S32K39 MCUs offer a
compelling combination of modern technology that provide
carmakers tremendous flexibility and scalability to accelerate
their EV development and deploy the latest
electrification technologies. NXP is leading
the way with a comprehensive portfolio
of complementary solutions to give our
customers the ability to provide better EV
driving experiences and help accelerate
the electric vehicle revolution."
NXP | nxp.com
provides up to 180MHz frequency, with as high as 2048KB of
on-chip Flash, 448KB SRAM, and up to 32MB external Flash.
The Power supply voltage is 1.6V-3.6V, and the I/Os can take
up to 5V.
The operating temperature is -40°C to +85°C,
complementing an challenging industrial environment design.
The maximum transm it power is 21dBm, and there is a signal
receiving sensitivity of -97.6dBm, along with a total link
budget of 118.6dBm. This provides a great deal of frequency
and baseband performance.
The adjacent channel rejection (ACR) value can run as high
as 48dB, which effectively prevents strong signal interference
while improving the stability of overall signal reception. The
series also supports high transmission rates with an Ip erf
throughput of up to 50Mbps. In the laboratory setting that
throughput reached 80Mbps.
To further simplify the design and development of products,
the radio frequency (RF) module is on-chip, reducing the Bill-
of-Materials and the need for external components.
The GD32W515 series is backed by an SDK in addition to
the hardware drivers, the software protocol stacks and cloud
connections, and other functionally dedicated systems related
to Wi-Fi modules.
There are a number of development environments and
tools such as Keil MDK, GCC, and IAR EWARM, which are all
fully supported. The operating systems cover a wide range
of applications and include FreeRTOS, uCOS, RT-Thread, and
AliOS.
GigaDevice Semiconductor | gigadevice.com
 circuitcellar.com 61

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62 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
Problem 1 —
Unix 6th edition was an important
landmark in the development of
operating systems. Distributed with
source code, it enabled users and
students to learn and understand its
operation in great detail. To start with,
what computer was the first to run
this operating system?
Problem 2 —
In terms of source code, how big
was the Unix 6th edition kernel? How
much of this was assembly code?
Q
E
R
U
O Partnering with Digi for your loT
Y
S project can deliver exceptional ROI -
T
S
E from critical insights to cost reductions
T
TEST YOUR EQ Contributed by David Tweed
Problem 3 —
One thing that made Unix 6th edition
famous was a "commentary" written
by a college professor that became
a widely-distributed teaching tool for
the operating system. Who wrote it?
Problem 4 —
One feature that was relatively
unique to Unix was the concept of a
"pipe." What is a pipe, and why is it
significant?
Connect with
Confidence
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Add ya FUjv.al, K m M k Co loundpr jrwf C*TO
As Wi-Fi has gained momentum in healthcare, we
quickly shifted our designs to connect wirelessly, which
hospitals prefer for reasons of security and convenience.
As w e’ve transitioned Digi has been right there with us*n
Ned Buffrngton. Avarctn chid Executive Officer
We created a privacy platform so patients can securely
access and provide sensitive healthcare data without
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completely meets legal requirements.
Dieter Rirtingtr. OK>rv Founder and CEO
www.circuitcellar.com/digi

Weathering High Jet Fuel Prices
Three Questions
to Ask Your Supply
Chain Partner
esign teams continue
to be vexed by supply
chain problems caused
by the "perfect storm" of
semiconductor chip shortages and high
jet fuel prices, issues which stem from
the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns,
geopolitical instability, and other various
disruptions experienced over the last two
years. These factors together have made
recovery a challenge for the electronics
industry.
All the more reason for members of the
design community to educate themselves
on the complexities of logistics and supply
chains. Doing so will put them in a better
position to plan go-to-market strategies
and timing, and to understand how
modern supply chain management can be
a critical competitive edge and source of
profit.
As the semiconductor shortages
continue, we know engineers worry about
electronic component availability. Avnet's
latest Insights Survey of global design and
product engineers found that component
availability remained the greatest
concern for over three-quarters (79%)
of respondents. Additionally, respondents
are preparing for increasing prices (29%)
and even longer lead times (26%).
A further complication to this issue
is the recent spike in jet fuel prices—up
42.6% over 2021 prices as of this year [1].
At least 90% of electronic components
ship by air. Thus, an expert ability to
negotiate and forecast is also key to a
competitive advantage in the current
electronics market.
Here are three questions to ask your
supply chain or logistics partner today.
circuitcellar.com 63
By
Doug Adams ’ Peggy Carrieres
Senior Vice President o f Vice President o f Global
Logistics for Avnet Sales Enablement and
Supplier Development
for Avnet
Given the complexity of international
supply chains, what strategies do you
employ to mitigate increased fuel prices?
To succeed in this climate, you need a
partner with deep experience in solving
these problems. Distributors negotiate
with shipping partners for the long
term, so a rise or fall in fuel prices isn't
immediately passed along to customers. As
with anything in the supply chain, it takes a
while for the impact to move downstream,
allowing a chance to mitigate variances.
Global supply chain experts can
leverage vast physical footprints, digital
infrastructure, and financial strength
to find the most efficient and cost-
effective alignment of available supply
with demand, maximizing the market
penetration of suppliers' products. What
large distributors examine most closely
is the cost per unit, and they design fast
and efficient supply chains with built-in
guardrails to protect customers against
spikes like this.
A myriad of factors goes into shipping
cost negotiations, and a good global
distributor will work with carriers
64 CIRCUIT CELLAR • MARCH 2023 #392
consistently on a host of issues to drive down
the overall cost per unit as much as possible.
With that level of expertise, your distribution
partner can bring many strategies to the
table and customize them to your situation.
What role does a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ)
designation play in making supply chains
more cost-effective? Why is that helpful
when fuel prices are high?
An FTZ operation eliminates the payment
of tariffs and duties on foreign products
received and subsequently shipped to a non­
U.S. destination. It also delays cash payment of
tariffs and duties on foreign products received
and subsequently shipped to a U.S. domestic
location until the actual shipment date.
This ability to defer payment of duties and
taxes is not just a valuable tool for cash-flow
management. As the cost of capital increases
and fuel prices continue to rise, it can help
customers better control their total cost of
ownership.
As an example, Avnet's 400,000ft2
McKemy Distribution Center in Chandler,
Additional materials from the author are available at:
www.circuitcellar.com/article-materials
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
References [1] as marked in the article can be found there. Doug Adams is Senior Vice President of Logistics for Avnet.
Peggy Carrieres is Vice President of Global Sales Enablement and Supplier
RESOURCES Development for Avnet.
Avnet | www.avnet.com
AZ, is one of the largest U.S. Customs and
Border Protection-authorized FTZs in the
state. Not only did this facility play a vital
role in helping to ease both the financial and
logistical burdens on Avnet's customers, but it
continues to provide Avnet's global customers
with greater flexibility in their sourcing and
inventory management decisions, as well as
significant cash-flow benefits.
What other aspects of supply chain
management should I know? For example,
how do data analytics help offset high fuel
prices?
A supply chain is not a single continuous
thread, but rather a web of stakeholders of
various sizes, in locations across the globe,
with a wide range of financial wherewithal
and business experience. Every device is
the result of the coordination of hundreds
or potentially thousands of companies
within many discrete supply chains—
minerals, chemical, plastics, metals,
software developers, semiconductors, IP&E,
packaging, testing services, manufacturing,
logistics and more.
The efficiency and strategic differentiation
of today's supply chains are highly dependent
on the quality of data captured and shared
among trading partners, the sophistication
of tools and technologies used to create
actionable insight from this data, and the
optimal management of cash flow and assets.
Optimizing the flow of product, data and
finance is central to ensuring that the value
created in each new product design is fully
captured as it moves to market.
CONCLUSION
A better understanding of the complexities
of supply chain management can help
designers bridge the gap between customer
demand for visibility, flexibility, and guaranteed
supply, and the supplier's ability to efficiently
manage these requirements. Hedging against
the risk of events like jet fuel price surges is
just one reason why the relationship with your
distributor is so critical.
 $TDK

pPOL” Chip-Embedded
Power Modules
A Simple Solution for High Power Density Applications

TDK pPOL™ DC-DC converters are compact and highly integrated

point-of-load converters for powering CPUs, MCUs, ASICs, FPGAs,
DSP, and other advanced digital logic devices, providing the high
performance, fast load transient response, and high accuracy voltage
regulation needed by these devices.

Technology Includes Inductor, DC-DC regulator with MOSFETs and Driver

Ultrathin: 3.3 mm x 3.3 mm x 1.5 mm or 4.9 mm x 5.8 mm x 1.6 mm

Plug & Play (No Compensation Required)

DC-DC Analog & Digital Bus Options (I2CI PMBus)

Current Output: 3 A, 4 A, 6 A, 12 A
REGISTER FOR
Wide Input Voltage (up to 16 V) A FREE pPOL
EVALUATION
Adjustable Vout ±5m V
BOARD
Output Voltage, ±0.5% Initial accuracy (Up to 5 winners)
 www.embeddedARM.com

OUTBACK
R SPACE

Extreme Remote Deployed Assets.

Technologic Systems computers are engineered
to be deployed to some of the most
remote places on, and off, the Earth.

The TS-7800-V2 was designed to provide extreme

performance for applications demanding high
reliability, fast startup, and connectivity
at low cost and low power.

Packed with interfaces such as USB 3.0, SATA

Gigabit Ethernet, CAN, and RS-232, RS-485,
and TTL UART Serial Ports plus a full complement
of digital and analog I/O. With so many features
integrated into one computer, you will
accomplish more while reducing
your payload weight.

TS-7800-V2 Where does your project need to go?

Single Board Computer with Starting at
Marvell Armada 385
$229
Dual Core 1.3 GHz ARM CPU Qty 100

^Made in USA a Technologic

g^with Global Parts
JI Systems
68/68