Micro controller operating principles, interfacing technologies and programming techniques will be studied. The aim is in the knowledge level where it will be possible to evaluate microcontroller solutions on different phases of product development for a smart product. The course gives as well a good starting point for further studies or even a career in designing digital electronics and microcontroller solutions.
A review on microcontroller products and operating principles will be given. Sensor input circuits and control output circuits will be studied in detail. There is a training module on object oriented programming and C++ fundamentals for those who haven’t experience on those. The microcontroller programming will be done by using classes and methods offered by an operating system developed especially for microcontroller applications, the ARM Mbed OS. Establishing communication over Ethernet and WLAN ( WiFi ) will be practiced. The developed code will be tested on microcontroller hardware.
Interface technologies for the micro controllers will be studied and practiced both by completing development tasks in an electronic design automation, EDA, tool and by practising with hardware modules. Programming will be practiced with exercises on general programming techniques and on exercises on implementing methods typical for a real time operating system for micro controllers. The developed code will be tested on micro controller hardware. The development tools used for various tasks are online tools and will not require installations on computer.
Scale 1-5. There are automatically evaluated tasks where the points gained from completed tasks will be visible for the student just after task completion. There are individually evaluated reports which will be evaluated at the end of the course period. The evaluation is based on points awarded in the exercise tasks and short course exams.
Online study. Within the given period the students can individually decide the timing of studying the fundamentals and completing the tasks. Content and time allocation can be seen on the e-learning environment Learn/Moodle. The e-learning environment will be accessible to students who are enrolled and accepted as students.
The study does not require anything special on students computer. For the exercises conducted on video it is recommended for a student to use two monitors or one monitor which is large enough.