DAQLite

The purpose of this project was to design a simplified data logging system for the Cornell Baja Racing Team. The work I did on this project builds upon the previous systems I have designed for Cornell Baja, but ultimately, this system is more sophisticated and in theory easier to use. In previous versions of data logging systems, users had to rely on a TCP connection between the data acquisition system and host computer to gather log files, which is an unintuitive process. The new system I have designed will use an STM32 microcontroller to poll data from sensors and write the data directly to an SD card. The solution I have now settled upon is called the DAQLite which stands for Data Acquisition Lite.

As of now, I have developed the code for writing to the SD card on an STM32 Discovery Board which uses the same MCU that will be used on the project. I decided on two approaches for writing the firmware: using the SDIO bus and the SPI bus to write to the SD card. The STM32F4 MCU I used on the project comes with a native SDIOMMC controller which makes writing to the SD card over the SDIO bus incredibly fast and convenient. However, debugging the SDIO bus is incredibly painstaking as there are not a lot of resources on the SDIO bus online. To circumvent this issue, I have also concurrently began developing firmware for writing to an SD card over the SPI bus. Although the SPI bus is significantly slower than the SDIO there are far more resources on the SPI bus then there are on the SDIO bus. As of now, I have been able to write data to an SD card over both the SDIO bus and SPI bus with DMA. In addition, I have filled out the rest of the project with the necessary ADC and timer implementations to have a fully functional data acquisition unit. Click on the Git logo to continue to the public repository where I have uploaded my code.

I have also designed a first revision of the DAQLite PCB using Altium Designer. This PCB will be printed and brought up in the fall. For more information on the PCB as well as the DAQLite project download the design document I have written for the project: DAQLite Design Document.

Close Project