MSc/BSc Project Topics and Resources

WDH

This document provides links to some resources for HC08, Palm and PIC programming and LCD device interfacing for BSc and MSc Project students

PIC Development Software

PIC Chips and Development Hardware

ARM Development

Embedded WEB devices

LEGO - RCX, NQC

Graphics

Useful misc. links

Powertip 128x64 Graphics LCD

Powertip PG12864-N and the Sharp LH155BA graphics LCD controller

Orient Display 2x16 character LCD

Low Power Radio

802.11 What You need to program the PIC microcontroller

PG4 development board or similar
Serial cable - could be RS or USB
9v power supply
MPLAB assembler
IC-Prog flash programmer

SP0256 Speech Chip

Compass Hardware

HC08 Applications Board

TINI System Development

GPS system development

Javelin Stamp - Parallax

PIC Kit 1 Software and Datasheets

Useful Texts on Embedded Development

2004/5 Projects

Kinshuk Rakshit (MSc) - Remote command/control using GPRS and GSM - 2004
Steven Tron (MSc) - Low Cost Wireless Sensor Networks - 2004
Soo-Ho Kim (BSc) - Small system specification & development using the LEGO brick - 2004

Some Previous Projects

Mark Dixon (BSc) - Remote wireless radio sensor system (RWRSS) - 2004
Steven Bain (BSc) - Mobile GPS system development - 2004
Gary Brown (BSc) - Traversing Firewalls for a Video Conference - 2004
T Song (BSc) - Embedded Graphics Library for LDC devices - 2004
Andrew Chilton - Magnetic compass using PIC processor and LCD - 2003
Chun Tan - Morse code decoder on TINI - 2003
Daniel McAlpine - Low power wireless data communication for portable devices - 2003
Hang Yuan - Palm application in Java - portability study - 2003
Thomas Edwards - Telemetry system for fire detection - 2003
Bing Sun - Real-time Microkernel for PIC - 2003
Ryan Anderson - An Investigation of the portability of Java applications for PDA devices., 2003
Peter Smith - A Distributed Traffic Light Controller - 2002
Steven French - A Text Based Code Generator for Allen Bradley Programmable Logic Controllers - 2002
Aidan Johnson - Low-Powered Unlicensed Wireless Devices for Data Communications - 2003
John Austin - Fuzzy Logic Processing of Vehicle Sensing Data - 2000
Bernd Holleczek - Minimal Task Response-Time Analysis, 2002
Haile Hu - XML data signatures can provide data security for J2ME MIDP applications on PDAs, 2003
Michael Manning - Monitoring radio controlled vehicles using an embedded low powered radio telemetry system. - 2003
F. decourtioux - Best-case response times for hard real-time systems - 1999
Darren Sheriff - The Construction and Animation of Time Graphs - 1998
Urs Eisenmann - Implementing a remote command interface for a manufacturing cell - 1996
Anneke Breuning - ALOG - 1995
Hans-Peter Eberhard - Porting and Timinga Hard Real-Time Kernel - 1995
Dietmar Vogel - MTEXGUI - MusicTEX Graphical User Interface - 1994
Sally Taffs - Enhancement of CAL using inter-processor communication - 1991

Some New Ideas

SUDOKU Solver
GPS decoder and navigation system
Graphics library for HC08 and LCD devices
Frequency counter - up to 30 MHz using a PIC microcontroller, LCD and prescaler
WCET computation for PIC applications - from Assembler/C
Speech generation interface for the Industrial Case Project system
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum for Low Power Radio Networks
Real-time case study and system development using ARM
Cantenna design and testing for 400MHz low power wireless application
Analysis of .map memory map files output by the COSMIC compiler - to generate a graphical display of memory usage
Speech synthesis using SPO256 speech chip
ARM system development
I/O interface development for ARM board
Telemetry using LPR devices
DSP filtering - noise reduction for wireless voice and telemtry communications
Domestic remote control via the web
Further development of LPRN protocol for short range wireless networking
Case studies in system specification
Robot cell web interface
Sensor network protocol modelling / prototype development
CAN bus traffic monitor
Talking navigation aid - GPS + speech synthesis
Morse code decoder
Amateur Radio software
Complexity measurement tool for embedded applications development in C
Audio debugging tool for periodic concurrent systems
PIC programming
Embedded project estimation
VOIP demonstration
Expert system support for embedded software development
Tone detection and decoding (touchtone phone) frequency detection using PLL
Power consumption study of algorithms and data structures
Thermodynamic modelling of heat pumps
Implementation of a global clock over a distributed system using CAN
Implementation of a real-time scheduler for Javelin Stamp systems

How to do well with your project

Form a hypothesis (problem statement) and make it testable
Make sure that you research your topic and make reference to articles you have read from books, journals and the popular press as appropriate.
Get the detail right - spelling, grammar, layout, references, etc.
Adopt a coherent, logical structure in your dissertation
Address the assessment scheme when deciding on dissertation contents and where to put the effort
Do some experiemntal work - get some results
Consider using illustrations to clearify your points but refer to your sources
Don't leave out important detail - consider putting technical stuff in an appendix
Omit padding -
You should demonstrate the sound use of engineering techniques and tools
Don't review tools, languages, methods just for the sake of it - it is likely that you chose the language, tools and methods for entirely pragmatic reasons and there is no point in trying to make it look like you reviewed several before deciding.
Write the abstract last
Use contents page and page numbers
Use decimal hierarchy in section numbering

WDH, Last Modified: July 14th, 2005

MSc/BSc Project Topics and Resources WDH