Out next week: the February issue of Circuit Cellar in both print and digital. A sneak peek just for you: Smart Cities, Voice-controlled robot project, COM Express and COM-HPC, RF location, rugged SBCs, eFPGAs, maze generator/game project. This 84-page magazine paints you a lovely canvas of embedded technology articles for your reading pleasure.
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Here’s a sneak preview of February 2022 Circuit Cellar:
IoT AND EDGE TECHNOLOGIES IN ACTION
Smart City Technologies
By Jeff Child
Huge opportunities exist today for implementing systems that build Smart Cities. From controlling energy waste to Smart Lighting and traffic control, IoT technologies including sensors, AI platforms, cloud services analog ICs and wireless connectivity products all have roles to play in Smart Cities. Circuit Cellar Chief Editor Jeff Child looks at the latest technology trends and products relevant to Smart Cities.
Home Air Quality Monitoring (Part 2): The Android Application
By Raul Alvarez-Torrico
Raul continues his article series on building a home air quality monitoring system based on Nordic Semi’s nRF5340 dev kit. In Part 2, he discusses the mobile app that he modified to interact with the IoT device and the web server.
RF Location Techniques
By Robert Lacoste
RF-based location—particularly indoor RF location—presents many challenges. In this article, Robert discusses the science and technology alternatives for doing indoor RF location. He looks at time-of-flight sensing, RSSI ranging, performance limitations and more.
RESOURCES FOR EMBEDDED ENGINEERING
Datasheet: COM Express and COM-HPC Boards
By Jeff Child
COM Express boards provide a complete computing core that can be upgraded when needed, leaving the application-specific I/O on the baseboard. New specifications, like COM-HPC are widening the scope of these capabilities. This Datasheet section updates readers on this technology and provides a product album of representative COM Express and COM-HPC products.
Microprogramming Choices Explained (Part 2)
By Wolfgang Matthes
In Part 1, Wolfgang explained the basics of implementing a microprogram control unit on an FPGA. Here, in Part 2, he shares some examples of small microprogrammed machines along with a discussion about principles that could be applied to more advanced projects.
Rugged SBC Advances
By Jeff Child
Embedded computers are used in a broad sweep of applications—some that must operate in harsh environmental conditions. Built for those situations, rugged SBCs offer a variety of attributes to serve such needs, including extended temperature range, high shock and vibration resilience and even high humidity protection. Circuit Cellar Chief Editor Jeff Child examines the latest technology and product trends in rugged SBCs.
Lehman’s Laws of Software Evolution
By Bob Japenga
In this article, Bob looks at Lehman’s Laws of Software Evolution and examines how applicable they are and what we can glean from them for our embedded system design projects.
PROJECT ARTICLES WITH ALL THE DETAILS
Build a Voice-Controlled Spider Robot
By Arijit Das
}Robots can be built in all shapes and sizes. In this project article, Arijit designs and builds a surveillance spider robot based on a Raspberry Pi. The robot can be controlled by voice commands or via the web.
Build an IR-Based LEGO Train Controller (Part 2)
By Jeff Bachiochi
In Part 1, Jeff began his project building an IR-based controller for LEGO IR remote-controlled trains. Here, in Part 2, he focuses on the receiving end of the IR commands sent using the LEGO Power Functions RC protocol, discussing the technology of IR demodulation and how to implement it.
Build a Maze Generator and Game: Using an PIC32 MCU
By Kyle Infantino, Jack Brzozowski and Dilan Lakhani
During the pandemic, many project designers met the challenge of doing team designs remotely. In this article, learn how these three Cornell students remotely designed and built a maze generator and game running on a PIC32 MCU. They focus on the hardware that enabled their remote setup as well as the software architecture of the system.
