In my class at the university I’m using a microcontroller attached to a DC motor from Maxon. The job of the microcontroller is to implement (among other things) a PID controller for the motor speed (or position). In the lab we implement the PID and all the related parts of the control loop without Processor Expert. But it easily can be done as well with Processor Expert components, as described here.
Technically, a normal user component can implement any RTOS. This is what I did with the Micrium MicroC/OS-II component. That way the component shows up in the ‘Embedded Components’ group. But how to make it showing up as RTOS component inside the ‘Operating System’ group as the FreeRTOS component? What I want is this: to show the RTOS component under the ‘Operating System’ group of my project:
FreeRTOS in the Operating System Group
Ah, a lot of work went into a new Processor Expert component, and finally it shows up in the component library:
default user icon
Oh, wait: *that* icon does not look nice enough for that amount of work behind the component?
In my previous post I mentioned the Drivers\Common folder which has ‘include’ files. These files are maintained automatically by the Component Wizard. But what is the purpose of these files?
The Common Folder has *.inc files which are included in the driver as ‘function’ header. The .inc file contains documentation about the function and parameters for that function.
What I describe here is an overview about the different locations, folder and files you will see if you are importing or developing a Processor Expert User component. I’m showing below example screenshot for the FreeRTOS component, as this is probably the most complex one I ever have created.
OK, I think this topic is a very special one, and probably not of interest of many folks out there. Or how many want to create a Processor Expert Plugin for an RTOS? Well, I did this. And I think that topic might be very controversial too, especially for all the RTOS vendors out there :-). The thoughts expressed here about creating Processor Expert components do not only apply for an RTOS, but as well for any other ‘complex’ software or stack. So if you are interested about the ‘behind the scenes’ of creating Processor Expert components, especially in the context of an RTOS, then read on ;-).
If you are new to Processor Expert in MCU10, and new to FreeRTOS, then you need to learn two new things in parallel the same time. That might be overwhelming. But don’t worry: if you do things step by step and slowly the first time, this much easier than you might think. This tutorial shall help you with this.
This is a step-by-step tutorial about how to create a project with CodeWarrior for MCU10.2, Processor Expert and the DEMOJM board. The goal is to create a project from scratch with two tasks blinking an LED. This tutorial uses the DEMOJM board, but in practice any other ColdFire/Kinetis/S08 board can be used as well.
Percepio has released a new V2.2.2 library of FreeRTOS+Trace (see Tracing with FreeRTOS+Trace from Percepio). The new release comes with many improvements. The trace recording is optimized for more efficient recording and longer trace with the same amount of memory.
Note: Because the trace data structure is changed and optimized, I need the latest tool on the PC/host from http://www.percepio.com.
I have updated the Percepio Processor Expert component to generate and use the new trace library V2.2.2. This includes the new settings in the component properties as shown below:
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FreeRTOS V7.1.1 was released beginning of May 2012. Finally I had some week-end time to integrate the changes and upgrade the Processor Expert component for it. V7.1.1 comes with smaller and larger changes. This includes maintenance and better support for various ports. One change is the removal of CLI from the original FreeRTOS distribution, an extra port macro and one trace hook macro.
The Freescale ColdFire V2 (MCF52259) is a great communication device: an embedded Processor like a Swiss Army Knife: Great peripherals, USB and Ethernet interface, a lot of flash application space and up to 64 KByte of RAM. I’m using that core in many projects, and there is great community support for it with boards and software. Unfortunately Freescale somehow provides Processor Expert support only half way for it. Support for the I2C bus is missing :-(.
MCU on Eclipse 