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\title{\textsc{Comp} 490 Midterm Report}

\author{Sam Anthony 40271987 \\
sam@samanthony.xyz \\ s\_a365@concordia.ca
\and
Hovhannes Harutyunyan, PhD \\
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering \\
haruty@encs.concordia.ca
\and
Concordia University \\
}

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\begin{document}

\maketitle
\tableofcontents
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\section{Project introduction}

The goal of the project is to build an electronic device for use in cars: it is an interface between the car's CAN bus (controller area network) \cite{can20b}, and some analog gauges installed in the cockpit.
An overview of the system is shown in figure \ref{fig:system}.

\begin{figure}
	\centering
	\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{"../proposal/diagram.png"}
	\caption{system diagram}
	\label{fig:system}
\end{figure}


\section{Desiderata}

The device must be able to perform certain functions.
As well, there are some desirable properties that it should fulfil.

These function and desirable properties are as follows:

\begin{enumerate}
	\item{Receive standard and extended CAN frames from the bus.}
	\item{Decode information in the frames.}
	\item{Generate four analog 0--5V signals suitable for driving temperature or pressure gauges.}
	\item{Generate two variable-frequency square waves for a tachometer and a speedometer.}
	\item{Be user-programmable for any encoding scheme and gauge combination.}
	\item{Run on a 12V automotive electrical power supply.}
	\item{Operate reliably in an automotive environment: resist heat, vibration, and EMI (electromagnetic interference).}
\end{enumerate}


\section{Component selection}

A car is a harsh environment for an electronic device.
The device is subject to large variations in temperature, vibration, and EMI.
To increase reliability, AEC-certified parts were chosen wherever possible.


\subsection{Logic control}

The microcontroller is at the heart of the design.
A Microchip PIC16F1459 was chosen because of its simplicity, robustness, feature set, and low cost \cite{pic16f1459}.
It is an 8-bit microcontroller that features a USB peripheral, an SPI peripheral for communicating with the other ICs, and timers for waveform generation.
The PIC is a proven design that Microchip recommends for automotive applications.
It is available in a DIP package, making it convenient for prototyping on a breadboard.

A Microchip MCP2515 serves as the CAN controller \cite{mcp2515}.
It supports CAN 2.0B and it has an SPI interface for communicating with the PIC.
An MCP2561 transceiver goes along with it \cite{mcp2561}.
Like the PIC, both these chips are available in DIP packages for prototyping on the breadboard.


\subsection{Data storage}

The EEPROM is used to store the configuration.
This includes the encoding scheme that defines how parameters are encoded in CAN frames, as well as a table mapping parameter values to output signal values.

There are six such tables: one for each gauge.
Each table has 32 entries, and the mapping is from 16-bit word to 16-bit word.
Thus, the required size is $6 \times 32 \times 16 \times 2 = 6144$ bits, or 768 bytes.
Additionally, the encoding schemes will take a handfull of bytes per gauge.

a Microchip 25LC160C EEPROM was selected.
Its 16Kib (2KiB) of space is more than adequate to hold the configuration.


\subsection{Input/output}

The PIC has an integrated USB peripheral for communicating with a host computer.
The configuration is sent to the PIC via USB and stored on the EEPROM.

Four DACs (digital-to-analog converters) generate analog signals to drive the four pressure or temperature gauges.
Based on the characteristics of commonly-used pressure and temperature sensors \cite{bosch_pst}, it was determined that a resolution of 15mV/step was required.
Given the operating voltage of 5V, this meant that the DACs must have at least $5\text{V}/15\text{mV} \approx 333$ steps of resolution.
Thus, an 8-bit DAC with 256 steps would be insufficient, and so a 10-bit DAC was selected: namely a Microchip\footnote{It is purely a coincidence that all the ICs ended up being Microchip parts. I don't have any particular affinity to the company. It just so happens that they make all the right chips for this particular application.} MCP4912.

The MCP4912 incorporates two DACs in a single chip, so there are two chips per board.


\subsection{Power supply}

The ICs require a 5V supply.
A 12V automotive electrical system operates between 9--16V, with a nominal voltage of $\sim$14V.
The voltage ripple is often quite significant as well.
Thus, the power supply must be very robust to supply a stable voltage to the ICs.

The voltage drop $V_\text{Drop} = V_\text{In} - V_\text{Out}$ is $16\text{V} - 5\text{V} = 11\text{V}$ in the worst case.
This ruled out the use of a linear regulator, since it would dissipate too much power.
The power dissipation of a linear regulator is linear in $V_\text{Drop}$:

\begin{equation}
	P = (V_\text{In} - V_\text{Out}) \times I
\end{equation}

The load current is estimated to be $\le 250$mA \cite{power_budget}.
That means a linear regulator would dissipate up to $11\text{V} \times 0.250\text{A} = 2.75$W.
That amount of power from a tiny chip would be difficult to cool.
Thus, a switching regulator is right for this design.

The power supply will discussed further in the next section.


\section{PCB design and manufacture}

TODO


\section{Firmware}

TODO


\section{Software}

TODO


\section{Errata}

TODO


\section{Next steps}

TODO


\printbibliography

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