Requirement

Design and develop firmware and PC applications for a networked energy sensor module.

 
System Overview

The energy sensor is a multi module system with multiple power measurement modules and a network module. The power measurement modules provide true RMS measurement of low voltage power parameters using digital processing of current and voltage samples. The network module provides data transfer to a PC and programmable control. The modules interconnect on a MODBUS backplane using a proprietary lead-frame connector system. They can be stacked on the backplane to give three phase parameter measurement capability. The entire firmware and PC application for data transfer and control was developed by Embitel.

The PC to device communication was based on multiple industrial automation protocols such as

• Industrial Ethernet

• WLAN 802.11

• DeviceNET

• PROFIBUS

Implementation

• Design and development of Firmware modules.

• Porting FreeRTOS and developing firmware applications for the energy sensor.

• Using LWIP Ethernet stack for minimal footprint Ethernet availability.

• Porting of proprietary DeviceNET and PROFIBUS stacks onto the platform.

• Development of a stack independent protocol for PC data transfer.

• Development of C++ framework for PC communication and data processing.

 

Testing and Validation

• Standard QA practices were followed to ensure quality of deliverables

• Standard Testing practices including Unit testing, Function testing, System testing etc

 

Tools

• Luminary Micro Stellaris® LM3S8962/LM3S6965 controller based ECU

• CodeSourcery GNU GCC toolchain

• FreeRTOS operating system.

• LWIP Ethernet Stack.

• Proprietary protocol stacks for CAN and other Industrial Protocols.