Embedded Systems Weekly – Issue 44
Issue 44 – 18 March 2016
Hardware
Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Grid connected applications require an accurate estimate of the grid angle to feed power synchronously tothe grid. This is achieved using a software phase locked loop (PLL). This application report discusses different challenges in the design of software phase locked loops and presents a methodology to design phase locked loops using C2000 controllers for single phase grid connection applications.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
After making the switch from AVR to STM32 microcontrollers, Ethan Zonca redesigned my old 6-pin ICSP pogo-programming adapter for SWD. The new design allows programming with pogo pins or a small pin header soldered to the pogo pads for debugging, all with the same cable. The footprint uses surface mount pads only, so it can be placed on even the most compact board layouts.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
IMO, KiCad is one of the best EDA tools out there, with just one major problem: Bill of Materials management is rough. If you make more than 1 board a year, you probably know how frustrating it can be to get everything together for an order. There are multiple ways to export a BOM (each with their own ups and downs), and the process of selecting and entering components is excruciatingly manual.
The goal of this app is to ease the bom management burden on designers who choose to use Kicad for their layout and schematic capture needs, allowing for faster, easier data entry, and to provide a part database for re-use in future designs.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Software
Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
In the early days of iOS neither the software nor the platform were well secured leading to many techniques for dumping firmwares, reverse engineering, and developing custom software for these devices. After all such public vulnerabilities were patched, techniques such as kloader leveraged system design to allow for interacting with the device in a state conducive to exploration. With the release of ARMv8 based devices utilizing the secure world, the situation became more complicated. There are however a number of kernel and architecture functionalities that can be exploited to ease digging into the platform and extracting useful information, some of which will be discussed in this post.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Misc
Debugging embedded systems within those constraints can be a real challenge for developers. Sometimes, developers will fallback to logging to a file with their beloved printf() in order to find the issues in their software stack. Keeping these log files on the system might not be possible.
The goal of this post is to describe a way to debug an embedded system with tracing and to stream the resulting traces to a remote machine.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
In this episode Shahriar repairs an Anritsu 37347A 20GHz Two-Port Network Analyzer. The unit does not boot up and as a result its internal state is unknown. The boot fault is traced to a bad RTC module which has a built-in integrated battery. A replacement unit is located which allows the unit to fully boot.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Imagine unmanned vehicles arriving behind thick concrete walls. They have no prior knowledge of the area behind these walls. But they are able to see every square inch of the invisible area through the walls, fully discovering what is on the other side with high accuracy. The objects on the other side do not even have to move to be detected. Now, imagine robots doing all these with only WiFi RSSI signals and no other sensors. In this project, we have shown how to do this.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook
Photo by RSI Photos
