Circuit Lake

Project description:
Here is ,another cool project from course ee476 Cornell university, autonomous vehicle, “Homer”, which can stroll around an environment without getting stuck at obstacles. That implies that it need a robust algorithm that tells the vehicle how to steer when it gets into different obstacle situations. The goal would be to demonstrate a vehicle that will run by itself and not get stuck or bump into any obstructions.

Link : The Autonomous Tank using AT90S8515

Steven Savage from Us has winned AVR 2006 Design Contest held by circuit cellar.The well-designed ATtiny45-based ATir interface device offers a convenient cross platform solution to interface an IR remote control to type keyboard macros to a PC. In addition to the microcontroller (from Atmel), the compact system features an infrared receiver/demodulator and a few discreet components. The interface plugs into a PS2 keyboard port on the PC and accepts commands from the infrared remote. this extraordinary application only take cost $10.

Link : ATir AVR IR Keyboard Interface

Protection in electronic circuits is crusial factor. especially polarity reverse protection. Can you imagine what happen if our circuit not pretected to reverse polarity supply. All digital IC will be damage, and also electrolit capacitor will blow up. There two simple way to protect the circuit from reverse polarity

1. Using diode
Connect your positif terminal in circuit to cathode and positif terminal from your power supply to anode of diode. See the picture.

The andvantage using diode protection is low in cost and simple to configurate it
The disadvantage from this configuration are the supply to circuit will decrease about V junction of diode (0,7v for silicon diode and 0,3 for germanium diode) and diode cannot handle supply with higher current.

2. Using Mosfet
Connect the drain to positif terminal of power supply, the gate to ground and source to postif terminal of circuit. See below picture

The advantage using this configuration is can handle power supply with higher current.
The disadvantage is not low cost and need heatsink (for higher current)

Project Description

John Orlando and Brent Taylor from US has made a extradionary application based on AVR microcontroller that is The ATmega8 microcontroller-based AVRcam. It is a stand-alone image-processing engine that’s well suited for robotics applications. The impressive AVRcam can track eight objects of eight different user-defined colors at 27 frames per second. The compact, low-power design provides a high-performance system that enables you to see your mobile robot’s environment.

A user interface displays the following image information in real time: the number of currently tracked objects as well as the color, center point, and bounding box of each object. A PC-based application provides a platform to configure the system. In addition, the application allows you to take photographs with the AVRcam. No wonder if This Application won AVR 2004 Design Contest.

Link : Abstrak | Email | source

Project Description :

The easy-to-use ATmega32-based Automatic Egg Incubator facilitates the proper hatching of healthy birds. This idea implemented by Niyaz K. Zubair from India. Two digital thermometer chips serve as dry and wet electronic thermometers. The LCD shows the real-time status of the system, which rotates the eggs and monitors variables such as temperature, aeration, and humidity. This project got HONORABLE MENTION category in AVR 2004 Design Contest.

Editorial by Bizon
Link : Abstrak | Source

If you learn a music instrument, definetely you know about metronome. A metronome is a device musicians use to maintain tempo. It generates a clicking sound at a steady rate that is set the user. Traditional mechanical metronomes use a windup spring and a dual-pendulum arm to produce the clicks. Michael Kirkhart from U.S. has design Electronic metronomes that offer additional functionality, such as programmable beats per measure, measure counting, and distinctive sounds for the first beat of the measure. But the sound of electronic metronomes can be grating. The ATmega16 microcontroller-based AVR Electronic Metronome improves upon the commercial competition with a rich set of sophisticated features and tuneful digital sound options.

Editorial by Bizon
Link : Abstrak | source

CAP7 Integrates FPGA Logic, Cuts IC Costs by over 50%

Colorado Springs, CO, June 25, 2007, Atmel announced today that it has extended its CAP family of customizable microcontroller-based System-on-a-Chip products with an ARM7 core. The new CAP7 customizable microcontroller is architecturally compatible with Atmel’s broad range of off-the-shelf ARM7-based MCUs and incorporates metal programmable cell fabric (MPCF) technology to integrate up to 450K equivalent ASIC gates in a metal programmable block for custom logic netlist conversion. Atmel’s flexible design flow allows an easy conversion path from FPGA netlist to the metal programmable block.

According to Atmel’s marketing director, Jay Johnson, Design engineers frequently use programmable ICs to accelerate their proprietary DSP algorithms in a gate array technology. Many choose FPGAs which represent a flexible, cost-effective solution for market-testing new products, when volumes cannot be predicted. However, once production ramp begins and controlling bill of materials is a priority, our CAP7 customizable MCUs offer a painless cost reduction path, without the typical NRE and long development cycle associated with a standard cell ASIC.

By eliminating an external FPGA, Atmel’s customizable microcontrollers can reduce IC costs by at least 50%. For example, in medium volumes (50K units), a 1 to 2M gate FPGA and ARM7 MCU, 2-chip solution, market price is between $13 and $20. With unit prices under $6, CAP7 can cut the cost by more than half. In addition, with an 80MHz CAP7, designers can double performance and reduce power consumption by 90%, compared to 1 to 2 watt FPGA solutions.

Link : News From Atmel