Adaptive Firmware Framework for Microcontroller Development

Firmware development for Low-Level Controllers is an extremely complex task. Single-threaded microcontrollers are most commonly used for these controllers and thus are only capable of executing a single task at a time. Microcontroller software tends to be designed for an extremely specific task with little room for scalability or code reuse. Additionally, the state of a microcontroller at run-time is very difficult to observe and thus makes it harder to debug and develop these control systems. To alleviate these development issues, a software framework was designed to simplify firmware development for Hardware Abstract Layered (HAL) control systems. The software framework was implemented on Texas Instruments TM4C123GXL Tivas on a multi-joint robot with the purpose of experimenting on a distributed microcontroller system. All of the software for the microcontroller was implemented into one program with initialization files from the high-level controller to configure each individual Tiva based on its functionality in the distributed system. The EtherCAT communication protocol is used primarily for its fast communication speed between high-level and low-level controllers. A basic GUI development environment accompanies the framework to aid in the initial development of a custom controller firmware and thus reduce development time. Additionally, this framework is designed to be easily scalable such that a real-time operating system (RTOS) can be implemented with minimal effort should the developer desire to do so. The proposed software framework thus overcomes major challenges when developing firmware for low-level controllers making development overall less time-consuming. Further, this framework can be used for many different robotic applications with a low-level multi-layered control architecture.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Tremaroli, Nicholas James

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Leonessa, Alexander

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Nazhandali, Leyla
• Wicks, Alfred L.

• Firmware
• Microcontroller
• Framework
• Robotics
• Humanoid
• Low-Level Networking
• Low-Level Controls

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:37806

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115472