Usually, there are two flavors of Sumo robot competition:
Just for fun, I have implemented a wireless remote controller application for my Zumo Robot using the Freescale SRB (MC13123) board. I’m using the Freescale MMA7260Q accelerometer on the SRB board to control the robot.
Accelerometer Remote Controller
For the INTRO Zumo robot I have three wireless options: Bluetooth, nRF24L01+ and IEEE802.15.4 with the Freescale MC1320x transceiver. For the nRF24L01+ I have developed a simple radio network stack which I can use with the MC1320x transceiver too.
MC1320x and MC13213 SRB Board
The INTRO course is progressing fast, with a lot of information passed on how to build a successful mini Sumo robot based on the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z and a modified Pololu Zumo chassis. The PID control loop implementation for speed and position finally starts to work properly with the help of FreeMaster. Things are not perfect yet, but the robots get better from day-to-day.
Zumo Test Battle
I was searching the internet for an open source network stack for my nRF24L01+ transceivers. But these stacks were either too heavy or had a restrictive or not really non-open source license behind it. I was very reluctant to start with something I think already should exist. Two weeks ago I decided that I just do it from scratch, and here I am: I have the basics working 🙂
Two FRDM-KL25Z with nRF24L01+ Transceivers
So this tutorial is about using a terminal connection between my board and my host (e.g. a notebook) to read and write text:
Color Text in PuTTY
Yes, I have been busy with all the different ARM Cortex Mx cores I’m using in my projects. But beside of the ‘ARM domination of the world’, there are other interesting processors out there. While the ARM cores have added DSP (Digital Signal Processing) capabilities blurring the boundaries between pure MCU and DSP processors, there is still a place (or niche?) for specialized DSP processors. The power of such processors is in the domain of fast signal processing, e.g. for intelligent power switches or for advanced motor control.
TWR-56F8400 Board and Box
Are you using IAR tools and you are jealous looking at what others can accomplish with Eclipse? You wish you could use your IAR build tools but taking advantage of Eclipse too?
I do not want to start a religious IDE war here ;-). At least for IAR, there is a way to bring both worlds together: having IAR build and debug tools integrated in Eclipse 
:
Using IAR Compiler and Debugger in Eclipse
For the Eclipse and Processor Expert lovers of this world: there is another Eclipse based IDE you can use: ThunderBench made by Emprog:
ThunderBench for ARM Eclipse Startup Screen
They support a range of ARM based devices, including the Freescale ones I’m using. So I downloaded the v3.24 30 day trial from their download page last week. Finally I have found some time to try it out. Could this be an alternative to use my Freescale FRDM boards with Processor Expert?
If you were wondering why I am pushing the FRDM-KL25Z boards hard to the micro-amps, then have a look at this:
nRF24L01+ Network Nodes
The five boards are the first set of prototypes with a FRDM-KL25Z for a battery operated wireless sensor network based on the nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz transceiver.
If you read my posts, then you probably know: I *love* the FRDM boards! But: Freescale has only the lower-end processors available with a FRDM board (yet?). As I need something more powerful for my Raspberry Pi Camera project, I’m using Tower boards instead. This gives me an ARM Cortex-M4 with 120 MHz, Floating Point unit plus 128 KByte SRAM :-).
For that project I need USB. So this post is about using the TWR-K60F120M and TWR-K70F120M with USB connectivity, using the USB CDC device class as example. Initially I thought I can do as easily with the FRDM boards. It turned out, that things are not that easy.
Freescale TWR-K70F120M Tower Board
