This article traces the evolution of an autonomous sound detector, from an initial functional implementation aimed at validating the concept, to a dedicated hardware design and a cabinet designed for real-world use in the field. Throughout the process, we present the technical and engineering lessons learned that guided each of the design decisions.
When it comes to embedded systems, especially in fields like industrial control or medical devices, getting your code to run efficiently, predictably, and safely is paramount. You’ve likely put in the hard work to design detailed, robust systems, but without a solid grasp of real-time concepts and concurrency, your efforts might not achieve the desired reliability. This is where understanding Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) like Zephyr comes into play. At Emtech, we build a lot of embedded systems, so I’d like to share and explore why real-time systems and concurrency are crucial for embedded developers and how they can help you build better, more reliable products.
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) is a technique for the development and validation of embedded systems that verifies application behavior directly on the physical target hardware. Because increasing system complexity in sectors like automotive and aerospace makes pure simulation insufficient, HIL allows for safe testing of risky scenarios. This ensures every software change is validated under real operating conditions, guaranteeing expected interaction between hardware, drivers, and the OS.
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In recent years, artificial intelligence in microcontrollers (TinyML) has gone from being a laboratory curiosity to becoming a real tool for environmental monitoring, health, and industrial automation. This article shows how we transformed gigabytes of raw audio—the songs of six Patagonian species—into a fully INT8-quantized model that takes up just 60 kB of Flash and takes less than a second to classify a clip on an ESP32.
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In the rapidly changing IoT/AgTech field, Emtech strives to deliver innovative solutions for agriculture. We upgraded from LoRa to LoRaWAN gateways to enable bidirectional communication with our nodes. This led us to adopt Zephyr OS, offering a more robust development experience for LoRaWAN.
The Zephyr Project emerged on the embedded systems scene in 2016 as a new real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded and IoT devices. It's a collaborative effort led by the Linux Foundation, along with Wind River, Synopsys, and NXP. Their goal was to create a multi-platform RTOS that leverages proven concepts from the Linux operating system, such as kconfig, device trees, and the driver model.
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Developing software based on preexisting code is an art in itself. When this challenge is combined with the use of the Qt framework and an inefficient legacy architecture, the complexity and opportunities multiply. In this blog, we will explore not only the benefits and challenges of inheriting code in the world of Qt but also how to address an inefficient legacy architecture and face the eternal dilemma of investing time in redesign versus saving time by maintaining the existing architecture.
Unlocking the Raspberry Pi's full potential for developing HMI applications for IoT involves a symphony of components, from the nimble Buildroot OS to the versatile OPC UA Server, TCP/IP Server, Serial Interface, RDP, SFTP, Camera, and seamless OS updates. Each element plays a pivotal role in enabling efficient communication, remote access, and adaptability, making it an ideal solution for the challenges of demanding industrial scenarios.
In today's post we will introduce you to automating industrial or Internet of Things equipment through an API developed with the OPC UA standard using QT as a development platform. QT allows you to create cross-platform applications, so you could create an application that runs both on a PC and on an embedded system like a raspberry pi.