Embedded Systems Weekly – Issue 56

Issue 56 – 10 June 2016

Hardware

Running NodeMCU on a battery: ESP8266 low power consumption revisited

Using Wi-Fi is a convenient way to link your newly created IoT device into your existing IT infrastructure – including cloud services – but it also has a drawback. Wi-Fi’s demand for power usually makes battery operation impractical for any real deployment. Nevertheless, it is possible to put the ESP8266 into deep sleep and wake up periodically to check and activate Wi-Fi only when required. This would suit a scenario in which an IoT sensor sends relatively infrequent one way traffic (i.e. where real time control of the device is not needed).Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

Analog Malicious Hardware

While the move to smaller transistors has been a boon for performance it has dramatically increased the cost to fabricate chips using those smaller transistors. This forces the vast majority of chip design companies to trust a third party—often overseas—to fabricate their design. To guard against shipping chips with errors (intentional or otherwise) chip design companies rely on post-fabrication testing. Unfortunately, this type of testing leaves the door open to malicious modifications since attackers can craft attack triggers requiring a sequence of unlikely events, which will never be encountered by even the most diligent tester.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

Software

Using GCC's Stack Smashing Protector on microcontrollers

Writing your code in C means manual memory management means a lot of bug types: Double free, use after free, stack overflow, etc. Those bugs can be especially hard to debug because they will cause erratic behavior but might not trigger an error condition immediately.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

8-bit computer from scratch.

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From Baremetal to RTOS: A review of scheduling techniques

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Aalto C – 2016

Free massive open online course (MOOC) on C programmingShare on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

Meet OpenPLC, the first fully open source Programable Logic Controller

The OpenPLC Project tries to be exactly what its name states. It is a standard industrial controller, with sturdy hardware and real time response. It can be programmed with all the five standard PLC languages (ST, IL, SFC, FBD and Ladder), making it compatible with programs written for other PLCs.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) System Calls

WSL executes unmodified Linux ELF64 binaries by emulating a Linux kernel interface on top of the Windows NT kernel. One of the kernel interfaces that it exposes are system calls (syscalls). This post will dive into how syscalls are handled in WSL.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

Misc

Hacking The Tesla Model S Rear Drive Unit

Jason Hughes is a big fan of Tesla, he’s spent a lot of time hacking on them to figure out what fancy things the automaker is up to. His most recent adventures are with the rear drive unit of a Tesla Model S.Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook

History: Construction of radio equipment in a Japanese PoW camp

Transcript of a recording by Lieutenant Colonel R G Wells, on the construction of radio equipment whilst in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp after the fall of Singapore. Share on Twitter ∙ Share on Facebook