This article deals with identifying the materials and the methods that will be used in this course based on "Embedded System Programming (ESP)" course for Electrical-Electronics Engineering Graduate program of MU Faculty of Technology. When the varying levels of skill and knowledge of the students is considered, it becomes necessary to adopt a blended programming method for the contents of the course. Even though the course is regarded as 3+0 ECTS of 8 credits (Theory: 3, Applied: 0), a content supported with extensive application is recommended. The content of the course allows developing applications using Xilinx Spartan 3E Starter Kit. Students taking this course are able to choose a method best fitted to their programming skills or preferences. However, it might be possible that the lecturer may not have a wide range of programming knowledge and skills. In this case, the graduate students are expected to determine and complete their own needs or shortcomings with the accumulation of knowledge they gained in their undergraduate studies. With the lecturer's guidance, the students are free to choose whether to use graphical programming (LabVIEW, LabVIEW FPGA Module) or conventional text-based programming (Verilog, VHDL, Matlab HDL Coder) in their projects. In this way, we expect an improvement in understanding of the contents and an expansion in scope.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

This paper presents a remotely controllable, differentially driven wheeled mobile robot development in order to build 2D maps for unknown indoor environments. This system would eliminate the need to preexplore such environments. Main aim of the study is to develop a system with high accuracy by using minimum number of sensors and a processor with low cost especially for comparatively small indoor areas. The distance traveled was calculated using the wheel odometry method. Obstacles surrounding the robot, the distance traveled, and the robot's orientation were obtained using an ultrasonic distance sensor, optical encoder, and a 3D orientation sensor (also known as an Attitude and Heading Reference System-AHRS), respectively. In addition, the characteristics of the system hardware components were empirically explored, and the errors resulting from the sensors were evaluated. The non-linearity percentage error arising from the encoder was defined and then compensated for. The hysteresis behavior of the ultrasonic distance sensors was also empirically tested. All of the tasks were conducted by using a low-cost FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) board. A graphical development platform of National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW and its FPGA Module was preferred in the study for embedded system programming instead of the text-based HDLs (Hardware Description Languages). This distinguishes the proposed system from similar prior studies.