3. Microcontrollers used in previous "Control" competitions

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3. Microcontrollers used in previous "Control" competitions [Copy link]

According to the requirements of previous competitions, the competitions do not specifically specify which type of microcontroller should be used. Single-chip microcomputers, FPGAs, ARM (embedded microprocessors), and DSPs can all be used in control competitions [3-12]. There are many types of microcontrollers used, including AT89xx series, ATmegaxxx series, STM32Fxxxx series, SPCE061A series, SST89xx series, LPC21xx series, LM3Sxxxx series, MSP430Fxx series, MC9S12xxxx series, C8051Fxx series, STC89C series, etc. The same winning competition uses a variety of microcontrollers.

Due to the sponsoring company, a chip provided by that company is usually specified in individual competition questions. For example, in 2009 question B, the sound guidance system, the motor control ASSP chip (model MMC-1) provided by the organizing committee must be used to realize the movement of the movable sound source. In 2013 question B, the autonomous quadcopter, the MCU of the aircraft control board must use the R5F100LEA (Renesas MCU) issued by the organizing committee.

In control-related competitions, it is a correct choice to use a microcontroller that you are familiar with and have a good grasp of the hardware and software.

1. Microcontroller

Microcontrollers are the most commonly used microcontrollers in college electronic design competitions. Judging from the winning works of previous years, various types of microcontrollers have been used in the works, such as: AT89C52, AT89S51, AT89S52, MSP430F1611, MSP430F2274, Atmega128, PIC16F628A, ADuC841, C8051F022, W78E51B, etc.

According to the competition requirements, the minimum system of the microcontroller (including FPGA, ARM, DSP) can use a finished board. Usually, some restrictive requirements will be put forward in the competition requirements. For example, the "minimum system" mainly includes a microcontroller, ADC, DAC, memory, etc.

With the emergence of new technologies and new devices, the 2009 National Undergraduate Electronic Design Competition National Expert Group discussed that the connotation of the "minimum system" involved in the competition should change with the development of technology. This issue should be based on the principle of keeping pace with the times and can be regulated through the specific constraints of the competition proposition. The responsible experts suggested that it is not appropriate to give a unified and clear definition of the "minimum system", which may restrict students and constrain the proposition, but the basic attitude of the expert group must be made known to the society in an appropriate way as early as possible. For example, the competition proposition will add "cost-effectiveness" and "system power consumption" index requirements to the competition works, so as to indirectly regulate the competition and pursuit of the participating schools to prepare "universal" competition devices. Introducing the "cost-effectiveness" index requirement in the proposition requirements has a positive effect on regulating the use of the "minimum system". Based on the principle of energy saving, experts proposed that the design works should have the "system power consumption" index requirement. "System power consumption" is a quantitative evaluation index of "cost-effectiveness", and the addition of these two index requirements has been generally approved by experts.

According to the requirements of the two added indicators of "cost-effectiveness" and "system power consumption", the design should select the appropriate microcontroller (including FPGA, ARM, DSP) minimum system according to the needs of the competition, and use different minimum systems to meet the design requirements.

2. FPGA

FPGA is the abbreviation of Field Programmable Gate Array. The main manufacturers are Altera, Xilinx, Lattice and Actel, among which Altera and Xilinx occupy more than 60% of the market share and can provide a wide variety of devices.

FPGA has the advantages of high integration, small size, flexibility, and reconfiguration, and has been increasingly widely used in control systems. Some issues that should be noted when selecting FPGA devices are:

• Select mainstream devices (Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, and Actel)
• Select devices according to application requirements (different types of FPGAs are suitable for different application ranges and need to be selected according to design requirements)
• Ability to obtain support from development tools (Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, Actel and other companies can provide excellent development tools)
• Select the device's hardware resources (hardware resources include logic resources, I/O resources, routing resources, DSP resources, memory resources, phase-locked loop resources, serial transceiver resources, and hard-core microprocessor resources, etc.)
• Pay attention to the device's electrical interface standards
• Select the speed grade of the device (Note: If the application requirements are met, try to use a device with a lower speed grade)
• Select device temperature grade, package, price
• Choose a finished development board (in electronic design competitions, for students who are new to FPGA, choosing a finished FPGA development board is a good choice. There are many manufacturers that can provide FPGA development boards that can be used for electronic design competitions, such as Kangxin's electronic competition board KX-DVP3F, Dahl EDA Laboratory's DL2C58, etc.).

3. ARM (Embedded Microprocessor)

In recent years, embedded systems have also been used in control competitions, and the number of such systems has increased year by year, such as ARM LPC2138, ARM LPC2132, STM32F 32-bit flash microcontrollers, etc. However, they basically do not use an operating system, but are used as a high-performance single-chip microcomputer, and are developed directly at the chip level to program and control internal registers and interfaces.

There are many factors to consider when choosing a suitable embedded microprocessor. In addition to the hardware interface, you also need to consider the related operating system, development software support, supporting development tools, emulators and materials, as well as the user's understanding of the microprocessor and work experience.

At present, there are many companies in China that produce ARM (embedded microprocessor) development boards (for example, Zhou Ligong Company), and can provide relevant development tools and reference materials, which is a correct choice for beginners participating in electronic design competitions.

4. DSP

In recent years, DSP systems have also been used in control competitions, but rarely, such as TM320LF240A, etc. However, they are basically developed directly at the chip level, with programming control of internal registers and interfaces.

The main suppliers of DSP are TI, ADI and other companies, among which TI has the largest market share. When selecting DSP, the main considerations are processing speed, power consumption, capacity of program memory and data memory, and on-chip resources (such as the number of timers, number of I/O ports, number of interrupts, number of DMA channels), etc.

Currently, there are many companies in China that produce DSP development boards and can provide relevant development tools and reference materials, which is a correct choice for beginners participating in electronic design competitions.