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Communication.
Tetra-H uses a unique PC communication tool.
Whilst the standalone processor board may be designed to operate in isolation, it is of great advantage to have it communicate to the outside world, not only for development purposes, but for monitoring or general control, or if it has to have a human interface or database.
Current design favours the ‘Internet of Things’ concept, using an IP addresses as a communication hub for your design. This offers the advantage of a web interface for your product and can simplify UI design. A disadvantage, however, is the large processing overhead of an IP stack which may cost tens or hundreds of kilobytes to build and have similar impacts on operating system complexity, and a subsequent effect on real-time performance and circuit design and cost.
A more subtle limitation is the simplicity and client server relationship implied in the web type access; whereby processing is pushed on to the embedded code so that the addition of any control, display, or additional analysis on the PC side (whilst useful for development) is not readily possible.
Tetra-H has a methodology for designing embedded systems which provides a PC communication interface as part of that design process.
This communication protocol can be interfaced to a variety of Windows programming languages, providing a very simplistic and rugged serial interface. Tetra-H’s communication tool provides a link between a PC and the embedded software at the function level. Supporting Commands (to the embedded system), results (from associated Commands) and Events (notifications pushed from the embedded system) within a rugged and fast interface protocol.
These add only a few tens of bytes of code and few additional machine cycles to the embedded system. By this means, it may be installed on very compact systems (has been commercially deployed on a system with 2kB of code and 512 bytes of RAM). The communication code and project components are generated in the ‘C’ programming language and are free for use, modification, and distribution by the developer.
