Sensors Expo - Trip Report & My Best Video Yet!
Stephane Boucher turns a first-time Sensors Expo visit into a fun travelogue and a polished conference highlights video. He mixes candid trip anecdotes from Moncton to San Jose, electric-scooter discoveries, Santa Cruz detours, Airbnb tips, and on-the-floor expo footage. The post culminates in what he calls his best highlights reel yet, plus a follow-up video focused on embedded and IoT.
R1C1R2C2: The Two-Pole Passive RC Filter
Jason Sachs walks through the math and simulation for the common two-pole passive RC filter, turning repetitive algebra into a compact reference you can reuse. He derives the closed-form transfer function, extracts the natural frequency and damping ratio, and explains why the topology cannot be underdamped without inductors or active stages. The post finishes with a state-space simulation recipe and practical component guidance.
Linear Feedback Shift Registers for the Uninitiated, Part XVII: Reverse-Engineering the CRC
Jason Sachs shows how to pry CRC parameters out of a black-box oracle and reimplement the checksum yourself. By canceling the affine offsets, probing single-bit basis messages, and treating per-bit outputs as LFSR sequences, you can recover the generator polynomial, bit and byte order, and init/final XOR values. The post includes working Python code, a 4-message shortcut, and real-world tests such as zlib CRC32.
Making a connection 1
Reliable electrical connections are the unsung foundation of any embedded system, yet connector selection and technique are often overlooked. This practical primer walks through common terminal styles, when to solder versus crimp, basic crimping steps and tool choices, plus simple checks and color-coding rules to help you make durable, serviceable wire connections without surprises.
Linear Feedback Shift Registers for the Uninitiated, Part XVI: Reed-Solomon Error Correction
Jason Sachs demystifies Reed-Solomon codes with hands-on examples and pragmatic tips for embedded engineers. The article shows why RS encoding is just polynomial division in GF(2^m), why decoding is mathematically heavier, and how to implement encoders in Python and in C-friendly form using LFSRs and table-driven methods. Read this for working code, generator-polynomial examples, and an embedded-minded view of RS practicalities.
Troubleshooting notes from days past, TTL, Linear
Troubleshooting electronics is more about thinking than tools, yet details matter. This concise collection of technician notes condenses practical procedures and probe precautions, IC failure modes, digital logic diagnostics, and common power-supply traps. Drawn from classic guides by Frank R. Dungan and James Perozzo, it provides a methodical checklist to isolate faults faster and avoid costly mistakes when repairing embedded hardware.
Linear Feedback Shift Registers for the Uninitiated, Part XV: Error Detection and Correction
Last time, we talked about Gold codes, a specially-constructed set of pseudorandom bit sequences (PRBS) with low mutual cross-correlation, which are used in many spread-spectrum communications systems, including the Global Positioning System.
This time we are wading into the field of error detection and correction, in particular CRCs and Hamming codes.
Ernie, You Have a Banana in Your EarI have had a really really tough time writing this article. I like the...
Tenderfoot: How to Write a Great Bug Report
A well-written bug report can save hours of debugging and prevent last-minute scrambles before demos. This post uses a contrived embedded RF product example to show what good and bad reports look like, the essential fields to include, and how clear reproduction steps helped find a simple bitmask bug before a trade show. Finish with a short template you can adapt to your team.
Who else is going to Sensors Expo in San Jose? Looking for roommate(s)!
This will be my first time attending this show and I must say that I am excited. I am bringing with me my cameras and other video equipment with the intention to capture as much footage as possible and produce a (hopefully) fun to watch 'highlights' video. I will also try to film as many demos as possible and share them with you.
I enjoy going to shows like this one as it gives me the opportunity to get out of my home-office (from where I manage and run the *Related sites) and actually...
Voltage - A Close Look
The post examines what voltage actually indicates in fast circuits by revisiting a classic interview puzzle and transmission-line wave behavior. Using a voltmeter and a compass to infer electric and magnetic field directions, the author shows how the right-hand rule reveals energy-flow direction rather than a simple ‘voltage source’ location. Revisiting leading and reflected waves on an open transmission line, the post explains that reflected wave fronts convert magnetic field energy into electric field energy (doubling the voltage at the open) and that energy is exchanged between field forms rather than being lost or simply ‘reflected away.’ The author emphasizes that voltage can represent storage, flow, or dissipation depending on context, and that an oscilloscope remains the primary practical tool for observing these energy phenomena in high-speed design.
PC and SP for a small CPU
Victor Yurkovsky walks through a compact stack-based CPU idea that tosses the conventional PC register in favor of a return stack living in Xilinx distributed RAM. The clever twist uses the stack memory addressed by SP as the program counter, making calls trivial and keeping the design tiny. The article shows the Verilog stack module and explains the practical tradeoffs of isolating the return stack.
2024 Embedded Online Conference's Schedule
Packed with live workshops, keynotes, and dozens of on-demand talks, the 2024 Embedded Online Conference hands you a full week of embedded-systems learning. Most theatre talks and microtalks drop early on April 26 to let you binge ahead, while major workshops and keynotes run live on Zoom with multiple 20-minute Q&A sessions. Use the schedule to add sessions to your agenda and expect occasional last-minute changes.
Developing software for a safety-related embedded system for the first time
Developing a safety-related embedded product is not the same as writing ordinary firmware, and this article lays out eight practical steps to get you started. Using a washing-machine controller as a running example, it covers scoping, key requirements, hazard analysis, applicable standards, platform and MCU choices, runtime monitoring, and prototyping. The checklist helps teams prepare for verification, testing, and later certification work.
NULL pointer protection with ARM Cortex-M MPU
This post explains how you can set up the ARM Cortex-M MPU (Memory Protection Unit) to protect thy code from dragons, demons, core dumps, and numberless other foul creatures awaiting thee after thou dereference the NULL pointer.
ANCS and HID: Controlling Your iPhone From Zephyr
In this blog post, we see how certain BLE services can be used to control an iPhone from a Nordic nRF52840 using The Zephyr Project. Specifically, we see how to control certain multimedia functionality using the HID service. Finally, we learn how to use the ANCS client library provided by Nordic in The Zephyr Project to accept or decline an incoming call.
Blocking == Technical Debt
Blocking code in embedded systems trades quick development for long-term pain, effectively becoming technical debt. This post shows how blocking in Arduino examples and traditional RTOS threads hard-codes sequences and timing, making change and extension expensive. It contrasts blocking kernels with preemptive non-blocking approaches and recommends event-driven Active Objects and frameworks like QP as more scalable alternatives.
First-Order Systems: The Happy Family
Jason Sachs takes the modest topic of first-order systems and makes it useful, showing how RC filters behave in both time and frequency domains and why they all share the same shape. He steps through step, ramp, and sinusoidal responses, explains poles, zeros, and Bode behavior, and uses Python plots to make tracking error and the role of tau easy to visualize.
DSPRelated and EmbeddedRelated now on Facebook & I will be at EE Live!
Stephane Boucher announces two practical updates for DSPRelated readers. He launched Facebook pages for DSPRelated and EmbeddedRelated so members can get faster updates, and he will be attending EE Live in San Jose from March 30 to April 3 with a $100-off promo code for early registration. He also asks the community for ideas on how to make his conference coverage most useful.
Global Variables vs. Safe Software
10,000 global variables is a striking code smell, and Stephen Friederichs uses the Toyota unintended-acceleration case to show why. He argues the issue was not mere coding style but absent processes: poor testing, lack of enforced standards, incorrect stack analysis, and unowned autogenerated code. Read this for a practical take on why globals and weak processes in safety-critical systems are a much bigger danger than style debates suggest.
Important Programming Concepts (Even on Embedded Systems) Part II: Immutability
Immutable data can make embedded code easier to reason about, reduce concurrency bugs, and eliminate defensive copies. Jason Sachs walks through practical techniques that work in resource-constrained systems, from using const and pseudo-immutability to separating old and new state, to the limits of fully persistent data structures when you lack dynamic memory. The article also compares register-level state flow and advocates message passing as a concurrency alternative.
An Iterative Approach to USART HAL Design using ChatGPT
Discover how to leverage ChatGPT and an iterative process to design and generate a USART Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for embedded systems, enhancing code reusability and scalability. Learn the step-by-step journey, improvements made, and the potential for generating HALs for other peripherals.
C to C++: 3 Proven Techniques for Embedded Systems Transformation
Jacob Beningo lays out a pragmatic, low-risk path for embedded teams to start using C++ without adding bloat or runtime cost. He recommends beginning by treating C++ as a cleaner C with namespaces, constexpr, and smart pointers, then adopting object-oriented design with composition, and finally introducing templates for static polymorphism where it makes sense. The post focuses on practical guardrails for resource-constrained firmware.
Embedded Programming Video Course Shows How OOP Works Under the Hood
Want to see how OOP actually maps to machine level code? This free video course walks through encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism with hands-on comparisons between C and C++. You will inspect C implementations, compiler-generated code, and debug traces, and learn how encapsulation relates to RTOS concurrency. The polymorphism lesson reverses the usual order to expose runtime costs and previews implementing polymorphism in C.
How to install Ubuntu 12.04 Precise, Xubuntu-desktop and Open JDK-7 on Beagleboard Rev. C2
Want to run Java GUI apps on a BeagleBoard Rev C2? This hands-on post walks through installing Ubuntu 12.04, adding the Xubuntu desktop, and getting OpenJDK-7 running, including SD flashing, u-boot and network setup, display and audio tweaks, and a fix for XFCE login ownership problems. Follow the exact commands and small workarounds the author used to get a monitor, sound, and Java VM working on the board.
Global Variables vs. Safe Software
10,000 global variables is a striking code smell, and Stephen Friederichs uses the Toyota unintended-acceleration case to show why. He argues the issue was not mere coding style but absent processes: poor testing, lack of enforced standards, incorrect stack analysis, and unowned autogenerated code. Read this for a practical take on why globals and weak processes in safety-critical systems are a much bigger danger than style debates suggest.
Thoughts on Starting a New Career
Changing jobs can be a reset button for your engineering momentum. Jason Sachs reflects on leaving a 16-year role to join Microchip as an applications engineer in motor drives, and he distills practical advice on early-career choices, mentorship, networking, interview tactics, and keeping skills marketable. The post also highlights workplace factors and small perks that affect productivity, giving embedded engineers actionable steps to plan a career transition.
Who else is going to Sensors Expo in San Jose? Looking for roommate(s)!
This will be my first time attending this show and I must say that I am excited. I am bringing with me my cameras and other video equipment with the intention to capture as much footage as possible and produce a (hopefully) fun to watch 'highlights' video. I will also try to film as many demos as possible and share them with you.
I enjoy going to shows like this one as it gives me the opportunity to get out of my home-office (from where I manage and run the *Related sites) and actually...
Launch of EmbeddedRelated.tv
Stephane Boucher launches EmbeddedRelated.tv to host live broadcasts from Embedded World, starting next week. The site will show a constantly evolving schedule, a Live! tab to find ongoing streams, and ad-hoc demos added from the show floor. Expect schedule conflicts and small hiccups, and plan to refresh the page and join the forum thread for real-time updates and feedback.
Understanding Yocto Project Layers: A Modular Approach to Embedded Systems Development
Managing metadata across embedded Linux builds gets messy fast, so the Yocto Project uses layers to keep things modular and reusable. This post walks through inspecting active layers with bitbake-layers, controlling overrides with BBFILE_PRIORITY, and creating a meta-yocto-splash-img layer that uses a .bbappend to replace psplash. It finishes by showing how to verify the custom splash screen in QEMU so you can test safely before deploying to hardware.
3 Good News
Stephane Boucher reports three quick wins for the EmbeddedRelated community: two sponsors have seeded a $1,000 rewards pool, the site now serves all pages over HTTPS, and the new forums have their first active discussions. If you want a share of the sponsor-funded rewards, jump into the forums and check the Vendors Directory for opportunities. Stay tuned for more updates.
