A universal microcontroller circuit and firmware design and implementation for IoT-based realtime measurement and control applications

Abstract

This paper presents a design and implementation techniques to construct a universal microcontroller board based on realtime measurement and control applications. It is not only designed for realtime applications, but is also designed for supporting many modern WiFi devices that utilize TCP/IP protocol over internet networks. It means the proposed system fully supports many Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Furthermore, it can also be used for computer based monitoring and control applications and many other industrial applications, including Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoTs) as well. In addition, the universal microcontroller board is designed for flexibility of use, meaning the users can custom the board to reduce and expand their applications. The system is composed of all necessary components including analog and digital input/output ports, WiFi communication based on TCP/IP. The realtime operating system (RTOS) and communication protocol drivers, e.g., UART, I2C, and SPI, are also embedded in the microcontroller firmware. The system is evaluated and examined in web-based realtime monitoring to prove that it can be used in IoT based realtime applications. The experimental results show that the proposed system appropriately exchanges data over internet networks to web-browser with high speed data transfer rate as expected.