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Embedded Systems using the Raspberry Pi Pico

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Instrumentation Division Technical Session 1

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40715

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40715

Download Count

2454

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Paper Authors

biography

David Loker Pennsylvania State University, Behrend College

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David R. Loker received the M.S.E.E. degree from Syracuse University in 1986. In 1984, he joined General Electric (GE) Company, AESD, as a design engineer. In 1988, he joined the faculty at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. In 2007, he became the Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Program. His research interests include wireless sensor networks, data acquisition systems, and communications systems.

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Abstract

In engineering and engineering technology programs, students learn about embedded systems in a variety of upper and lower-division courses. Each of these courses includes a lab component where students design and implement hands-on projects which reinforce lecture materials. This paper will demonstrate that the Raspberry Pi Pico embedded board can be used as a basis for many laboratory projects within a variety of embedded courses. Some courses include Introduction to Programming, Microprocessors, Embedded Systems, Object-Oriented Programming, Measurements and Instrumentation, Wireless Communications, and Control Systems. The Raspberry Pi Pico is a new inexpensive board built on the RP2040 microcontroller. Some key features of this board include USB device and host support, 26 GPIO pins, on-board temperature sensor, PWM, ADC, and various interfaces such as SPI, I2C, and UART. Software development can occur using either C or MicroPython. MicroPython is a small subset of the Python standard library, and it is designed to run on a variety of microcontrollers for embedded applications. For this work, MicroPython will be used for software development within Thonny, the Python IDE. The goal of this paper is to show a series of embedded lab projects that can be used within these courses. Possible lab projects include: digital and analog I/O operations, serial LCD interface (I2C and UART), control of LED strip using SPI interface, ultrasonic range sensor control, temperature sensor interface using ADC control, GPS control, and DC motor control using a half-H bridge driver IC. Several of these projects will be presented in this paper. A student assessment will also be provided.

Loker, D. (2022, August), Embedded Systems using the Raspberry Pi Pico Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40715

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