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Shize’s Status Report for April 29

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours).

I wrote and tested a new firmware that supports the receiving of large data packet in data mode. The new firmware enables whole-matrix update as well as Fram-defined moving pattern. I also added the password functionality into the firmware where user needs to send password first to program the matrix. The firmware will be further updated to support push button triggered interrupt to receive ble data. In doing so, the microcontroller doesn’t have to poll for ble data and therefore has less power consumption. I also participated in the team discussion of new hardware design.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?

My progress is on schedule.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

The firmware needs to be updated to accommodate software and I will also add support for push button and GATT for customization and battery measurement.

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Shize’s Status Report Mar 25th

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours).

I discussed ethics related issues with the team and participated the in class activities for ethics. I also continued to work on the PCB and firmware and couldn’t make significant progress. I’m now looking into alternative solution that uses a less complicated hardware that involves using Adafruit Arduino feather board. Saniya and I are also seeking help from the professors in embedded systems. I will order a feather board next week and hope it reduces the difficulty of firmware development significantly.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?

My progress is behind. I will order a feather board next week and hope it reduces the difficulty of firmware development significantly.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

Get started on developing the hardware using Arduino feather.

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Shize’s Status Report for March 11

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project? Give files or photos that demonstrate your progress. Prove to the reader that you put sufficient effort into the project over the course of the week (12+ hours).

I worked on driving the LED matrix using the nucleo but couldn’t get the GPIOs to work correctly. I think this might be due to the incorrect HAL library files I downloaded from GitHub. Right now I’m debugging the problem and checking the compatibility of GitHub code. Because of the trouble I encountered working with nucleo, I also made alternative plan. I watched the BLE demonstration on Arduino feather and found that very simple. I think in the worst case scenario we can switch to using an Arduino feather and use that to drive the LED matrix.

Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?

My progress is behind. I’m contacting ST to ask for help using their library.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

I hope to finish the PCB design by next week.

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Shize’s Status Report for Feb 25

What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?

I prepared and presented the design presentation this week. By preparing the design slides, I made schematics that demonstrate port connections between key circuit components. After receiving the STM32WB55 nucleo board, I downloaded the HAL library and successfully compiled them Using GCC-arm and I’m currently putting together an UART driver to get started on the developing process. To program the board, I’m also working on the linker script for stm32w, and to simplify the process, I’m working on a makefile that does everything for you. I expect to get all of these done by tomorrow and start looking into SPI peripheral and test its functionality using Saleae.Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?

My progress is on schedule if I can get the toolchain up and running and start developing for SPI peripheral tomorrow. If I end up being behind, I will dedicate more time next week to make sure the SPI peripheral works.

What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?

A well organized HAL library that helps everyone in the team to work with the microcontroller and a functional SPI peripheral.

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Shize’s Status Report for Feb 18

This past week I started designing the PCB, read STM32WB55 reference manual, and prepared for the upcoming design presentation.

I started the PCB design using fusion360 on the ANSYS computers. I exported a PCB schematic of STM32WB55 from the internet and read the reference manual about how to drive the SPI peripheral. Because we haven’t get the screen to prototype the circuit, how the microcontroller is connected to the screen (such as which GPIO ports to use) is still contingent. I plan to use diagrams to demonstrate the circuit. For MVP, I reviewed the electrical behavior of diodes and plan to finish the circuit design by tomorrow.

The current progress is on schedule, I think I can get hardware development fully going once receiving the parts.

For next week, I’m delivering the design presentation for my group and I plan to start prototyping the circuit and make progress on both firmware and PCB design. For firmware, I target the goal of a successful programming of the screen using the SPI peripheral on nucleo board.

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Shize’s status report for Feb 11

This week, I contributed to the slides for our proposal presentation. I contributed mostly to the technical challenges and solution approach: hardware sections. By finishing these slides, I identified 5 technical challenges and proposed a hardware solution to our project that can potentially address the technical challenges. I did research on different microcontrollers we can use for our project and pinpointed the STM32W series as the processor we will use. I also suggested ordering two nucleo boards for firmware development, one for each of the team members who are responsible for hardware development.

The progress is on schedule.

In the next week, I hope to get the nucleo board and setup the toolchain. I will also start on getting the BLE working with a python script. My goal for the next week are getting the toolchain up and running and getting myself familiarize with the BLE peripheral on STM32WB55.