ZigBee-based wireless microcontroller development platform

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ZigBee-based wireless microcontroller development platform [Copy link]

Preface: Wireless communication technology is developing rapidly, and various new wireless communication technologies are emerging one after another, from WI-FI, to Bluetooth, to today's short-distance communication hotspot ZigBee, wireless sensor networks, which overwhelm electronic engineers. If electronic engineers have the opportunity to quickly build their own wireless network development platform with a small amount of investment, and master the technical experience and core technology of developing wireless networks through hands-on practice, it should be very important in today's wireless era.

1. How to choose embedded wireless development tools and platforms?
1) Choose the right development tools according to your application needs.
If your application is mainly based on cost considerations and the application is relatively simple, such as designing a simple remote control product, including remote control of a curtain, light switch, simple point-to-point data transmission, remote doorbell, wireless electronic display board, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, wireless game controller, etc. The high-frequency system works in the high-frequency band of 300MHZ-2.4GHZ. You can choose to use the more mature and inexpensive NRF9E5/NRF24E1/CC1010 wireless microcontroller chips and the lower-priced C51RF-2 series emulators and development tools (including all wireless communication training materials that come with the open tools); if you use the MCU+RF technical solution, you can use wireless chips such as cc1100/cc2500/NRF2401/NRF905 and the Wireless Dragon S3000 (8051 processor + RF chip) development platform.
If your application is more complex, with more nodes working together, you need a more complex network topology to connect, such as super star network, tree network, mesh network, etc., or you need to be compatible with the 802.15.4 international short-range wireless communication standard. The application systems include: underground personnel safety system, high-precision real-time positioning system, large-capacity wireless sensor network, digital home system, container tracking system, RFID system, wireless network home appliances that meet the 802.15.4 standard, wireless security system, etc., working in a high-frequency band higher than 2.4GHZ, you can choose C51RF-3's ZigBee/802.15.4 series simulators and development tools and development platforms.
If your application requires a very small size, a relatively simple network topology, a very fast transmission time, and a relatively large number of wireless nodes, generally less than 6; applications include: wireless watches, wireless sports equipment, medical micro sensors, you can use wireless network chips such as NRF24AP1/NRF24L01 and Wireless Dragon S3000 (8051 processor + RF chip) development platform (Wireless Dragon has recently added support for these two wireless network chips).

2) Choose a development platform based on your own knowledge level and familiarity with wireless technology.
For electronic engineers who have little contact with high-frequency design, it is a challenging task to quickly complete the development/design of a wireless communication system. To cope with this challenge, you need a gradual learning process and certain experimental equipment and testing environment. If you are new to embedded wireless communication technology, you can choose to start with the low-priced C51RF-2 series wireless microcontroller development system. By comparing the supporting teaching materials provided by Wireless Dragon Communication Company, you can practice how to conduct simple wireless communications and develop simple wireless applications. You will have a complete understanding and experience of high-frequency circuits, wireless communication principles, possible problems in hardware and software, and how to use software programming to solve practical problems in data communication, etc. Then you can start the design and development of more complex wireless networks.
For those who already have rich experience in this area and whose product development needs to be designed in wireless networks, you can directly choose the C51RF-3 ZigBee/802.15.4 series simulators, development tools and development platforms.
If you want to use the low-cost C51RFC51RF-2 series development tools, please refer to the technical article on www.C51RF.com: "Use C51RF-2 wireless microcontroller design tools to build a wireless communication product development work platform at home."
This article will mainly introduce how to build a ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless network development platform. The following example illustrates how to use the C51RF-3 wireless microcontroller development system to build a ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless network development platform.


2. Required equipment and necessary conditions
In countries with advanced wireless development, such as the United States, the investment in laboratories for developing wireless network products is very huge, with hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions of dollars. This is because the annual salary of high-frequency engineers in the United States is very high, with more than 100,000 dollars being common. Therefore, it is necessary to provide higher-level development equipment to shorten development time and reduce development costs. At the same time, the high-frequency equipment required for wireless development, such as high-frequency oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and high-frequency signal generators, are very expensive. There are also special signal and wireless protocol analyzers (ZigBee protocol analyzers, Bluetooth protocol analyzers, etc.), which are even more expensive.
In China, generally, medium and high-frequency equipment is not available. It is difficult for small companies to invest in such a laboratory, not to mention ordinary electronic engineers who want to build such a wireless network development platform at home.
However, with the advancement of technology, especially the development of integrated circuits, manufacturers who develop low-cost wireless chips have adopted the system-on-chip method to integrate a large number of high-frequency circuits, giving birth to products such as wireless microcontrollers. Recently, they have developed products that integrate 8051 MCU, ZigBee/802.15.4 high-frequency circuits and a considerable amount of wireless network software into a single chip. (The best product at present is the CC2430 series ZigBee developed by TI/chipcon. 8051 wireless microcontroller (for details, please refer to Appendix 1 "RF chip CC2430 based on ZigBee technology"). This allows ordinary engineers to realize their dream of building a wireless network product development studio at home with very little investment and developing wireless products at home.

The necessary conditions for building this laboratory are:
1) A PC that can run Windows XP, any Chinese/English version, a hard disk of more than 40G, a normal CD-ROM drive, a USB port, and a speed of more than 800M can work; it does not need to be a very new computer, an old computer can work without any problem.
2) A C51RF-3 wireless microcontroller development system (this is a domestic product available on the market, the price is lower than similar foreign products, you can buy it immediately through www.c51rf.com), you need to connect the development system C51RF-3 real-time online emulator directly to your computer through the USB interface, and at the same time, connect it to the CC2430 ZigBee wireless microcontroller and target board through a 10-wire simulation cable, (the Wireless Dragon C51RF-3 development system comes with two CC2430 wireless target modules that have been fully tested at high frequencies) to easily complete the connection; no other DC power supply is required.
3) IAR7.20 or above C51 development environment. This development platform is very similar to KELL's development platform. If you are familiar with KELL's C51 development platform, you should be very easy to use and like this powerful similar IDE/DEBUG platform.
4) A multimeter. When you have completed the connection, you have your own wireless network product development platform. With this platform, you can use the cc2430 series ZigBee wireless microcontroller (if you choose c51rf-3) at home to develop many wireless products with wireless network functions. You don't have to consider that this is a high-frequency product working at 2.4Ghz. As long as you know 8051, you can fly freely on this wireless platform and develop the wireless products you want. With this development system, you can still develop advanced wireless communication products with the same functions developed in wireless network laboratories worth hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad. Of course, this is just a basic platform. If you have the conditions, you can choose the following configuration:
5) Protel99 and other circuit board design software, design your own circuit board.
6) An oscilloscope, observe the low-frequency digital signal of the microprocessor.
7) Low-cost C51RF-3-F ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless protocol analyzer, which is the same as the foreign professional ZIGBEE/802.15.4 wireless protocol analyzer, uses USB high-speed connection to PC, can conveniently/quickly observe the wireless data package transmitted in the air, making your wireless network debugging/testing more convenient, and the price is only 1/10 of similar foreign products.


III. Conclusion
As an electronic engineer/single-chip microcomputer engineer, specific and multi-faceted design experience and knowledge are very important, especially the development of electronic technology, which is advancing by leaps and bounds, and keeping up with the development of the times is even more important for electronic engineers.
After becoming familiar with 8-bit single-chip and technology, many electronic engineers/MCU engineers began to learn ARM and other 32-bit MCU technologies on their own. They also spent up to several thousand RMB to purchase ARM development tools and build their own ARM development platform at home. There are also many advertisements saying "Learn ARM well and you will have opportunities", etc. In fact, from the perspective of the development of electronic/MCU technology, the development of MCU from 8-bit to 32-bit is mainly a quantitative change in running speed, and the wireless and wireless network integration of MCU is a qualitative leap in MCU. The huge market and extremely broad application prospects brought about by this will be more encouraging and exciting than the development of MCU from 8-bit to 32-bit.
Two years ago, I wrote an article "The Wireless Era of Microcontrollers and the 8051 Microcontrollers in the Wireless Era" which portrayed the encouraging market prospects of wireless microcontrollers. Two years have passed, and as I predicted at the time, the market and development of wireless microcontrollers are growing at a very fast pace. In particular, the acquisition of chipcon, the forerunner of 8051 wireless microcontrollers, by IC giant TI and the huge success of the ZigBee Alliance have further proved the arrival of the era of "wireless microcontrollers".

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