Quick Update: Linux or CE6

 

As promised, I’ve got a quick update about the system. I got my board out and flashed a build of Windows CE 6.0 that I had lying around. I’m currently evaluating how well CE6 would work for my idea. At this point of time I’m rather inclined towards throwing in a build of Linux like Qtopia or OpenEmbedded and avoid the whole .NETCF thing I had planned. One of the reasons for that is, I’m unable to get a good driver for my OV9650 based CMOS camera module, and I don't want to use the (slow) C# I/O to write a new one. I do already have a driver and DLL written in eVC++ for the module but that is giving me erratic results in CE6 (works great in CE5), so I reason: If I’m using C++, I’d rather use it with Linux than CE6.

So now the question, Qtopia (I think it’s being called QTextended now)or OpenEmbedded? The answer is also a question, which has better community support? Hmmm…

That’s all for now folks. As always, leave your comments, it makes my day.

Mini2440 – ARM9 Board

The thing about blogging on your spare time is that you tend to have long absences from it when the spare time gets more sparse.

So, lets pretend that I was too busy to blog the last couple of months ().

Moving on to the more important things, I’ve been having an urge to build a robot for a while now, not just any ol’bot; something which really blows minds out! I mean, I’ve built line followers, maze solvers, wall huggers (really!! that’s a term!), image/object trackers, arms, legs, hexapods and Sumos, but I’m talking something different here.

So, as it happens I’ve got an idea too! I could of course keep talking about what a genius I am , but I’d rather pen my idea down. I propose building a robot, which uses a very small form factor brain, does many (all?) of my common household tasks like fetch the soda, vacuum the room, feed the cat, wake me up from my slumber, play my music, water my ferns and kill the ladybugs in my 7th floor apartment (damned bugs!).

It just so happens, I recently acquired a Mini2440 ARM9 based board (only 100mmx100mm) which should be just right for the job. The reasons I chose my Mini2440 over my trusty and much easier to program NXP mbed module (ARM Cortex M3) is:

1. While the mbed is great and really easy to program with the mbed library, I need something with some real metal on this one, and the Samsung S3C2440 running at 400MHz just can’t be beat by my 100MHz mbed.
2. I want to go high level on this one, and when I said high level I’m definitely understating how high I’m talking about. I’m talking Windows CE, and Webcam and possibly .NETCF.
3. This one was simply the decider. My mbed isn’t available. Yup, its occupied, busy, engrossed, tied up, engaged, industriously absorbed in other tasks (you get the point). My mbed module is currently the part of my object tracking algorithm research project (more on that later), and simply cannot be spared for another six to eight weeks.

So that’s all for now folks, Stay tuned for another installment soon, I’ll post the finalized specifications of the bot very soon (I swear!). As always, leave your suggestions, ideas, comments, rants, death threats or anything else. It always makes my day.