This week, I was mainly working on the system design and architecture of how the major processing, communication, display, and power subsystems interact with each other. This includes the esp32p4 MCU, GPS and LoRa modules, touchscreen, battery charging and protection, voltage regulation, and thermal monitoring. I then worked on creating the system block diagrams and preparing the corresponding design slides.
I also worked on comparing our processor and peripheral options and helped finalize the specific modules we would like to proceed with, with a main focus on their processing power, power needs, development support, and compatibility. After finalizing these decisions, I have started working on developing the GPS firmware.
My work is currently on schedule overall, although the hardware selection phase took a bit longer than initially expected because we reconsidered a few different processor architectures. The main processor (and the corresponding dev board) and initial peripherals have been finalized now, so we have a stable architecture that we can start developing on.
I’m currently working on developing and testing the GPS and LoRa interfaces. This will be done on the dev board while the custom PCB is still being designed. In terms of GPS, the goal is to complete a minimal version that reliably reports latitude, longitude, fix status, and timestamps before we start adding more complicated configuration and power management features.
Next week, I plan to complete the first functional version of the GPS interface (specifically the driver configuration and message NMEA message parsing) and begin LoRa message transmission, and the expected deliverables will be committed GPS code and potentially an updated system diagram and LoRa bring-up code.