Infrared transmission is becoming more and more important for exchanging data between computers and peripherals. For this reason, the Infrared Data Association (IrDA), a union of several big computer firms, promoted a protocol standard. The aim of our diploma theses was to realize data-communication between a PC with a standard IrDA Interface and an embedded system based on the 80C537 microcontroller.

In a first step we studied the function of the IrDA protocol stack, which contains a physical layer and a minimum of three software layers. Because of the complexity of the IrDA protocol and the short limited amount of time we had, we decided to create our own communication-protocol based on the XMODEM protocol instead of the standard IrDA protocol. Thus we only used the IrDA physical in our protocol.

Therefore we had to develop a hardware for the embedded system. The hardware, a dongle for the serial communication port of the embedded system, is based on HP's evaluation board HSDL-8000. We also used this hardware on the PC's serial port, because we couldn't use the windows drivers for the internal IR port of our notebooks with our communication protocol.

The existing solution is a remote controlled online voltmeter. One part of the System is represented by a user interface for Windows 95. The other part is represented by the embedded system. The PC software allows us to start and stop the measurement of the 8-bit AD-converter on the embedded system. Multiple data are converted and transfered wireless to the PC in a data frame. The frame length is variable but there is a restriction to 128 bytes. The incoming frame is analysed and the last value of the frame will be displayed. This means the PC software shows the measured voltage on the display.

The technical school of Winterthur (TWI) gets its heating energy from a long-distance heat supply of the city of Winterthur. The two separate water circulations are coupled together over a heat exchanger. So that the TWI can make an analysis of the heating system, the heating data of the heat counter, which are available over a serial interface, are registered. The existing system for the heating data acquisition must be renewed.

The Target of this diploma was to develop a software under Windows NT. On one hand the data must be independently entered and saved. On the other hand a user must be able to operate visually with the available data. That is why an implementing of two programs was selected.

The heating data manager enters the heating data and stores these into a Buffer. If the Buffer is full, the data records are stored into a data base. Because every day approximately 17000 data records are entered, the heating data manager reduces the number of data records by averaging during a certain period. For each day a data base is created. So that all heating data are always entered, the priority of the heating data manager is "real-time". The different subtasks were implemented by individual Threads. The heating data manager is a task border application.

A user generally operates only with the display manager. The display manager contains different opinions for the heating data evaluation. The process picture shows the heating system with the current heating data, which are supplied over the Pipe by the heating data manager. The heating data can be regarded tabular or graphically. Also a heating cost calculation can be created. These different possibilities can be printed out. Also a Backup Tool for the storing of the heating data was implemented.

As programming language Delphi 3 was used.

The purpose of my graduate work consisted of controlling the double elevator model, available in the MC laboratory, with a CAN-bus. CAN stands for "Controller Area Net-work" and is as bus system a very high performance and disturbance-insensitive field bus. Nowadays it is used particularly in the automobile industry and is increasing also in other areas. The elevator consists of two slots with five floors each, whereby the control units of the the cabs are modelled with two console. As is the case for a real elevator the model consists of all relevant items such as displays, tracers locking mechanism, control contacts and position switch.

For the implementation I used the MCB-517AC evaluation board with a SAE 81C90 CAN-controller of Siemens as master control unit and eight SLIOchip-150 of PHYTEC as slave nodes, which serve the different sensors and actuators of the elevator. The control was developed with the software package Keil PK 51 and written exclusively in the programming language C.

The elevator is with its sensors (contacts, tracers) and actuators (LED's, magnets, engine, cab console) completely attached to the Slave CAN-controller. With the PCAN-Dongle, a master CAN-node, witch can be plugged into the parallel port of a PC, it was possible to test the functions of each individual SLIO's. The initiation of the software to the CAN-nodes, to the controller and also to the flow control are designed and implemented. The flow control was structured for two elevator cabs. However an intelligent elevator allocation is missing after pressing a button on one of the floors. During the control of the SLIO's I encountered some problems with communication and could not make the program run.

I became acquainted with the philosophy of the CAN bus and the used controllers quite well. I am sure I can use this knowledge in my future profession.

Provided that a haulage business always has the present location, load, driven distance and heading of all the vehicles at it's disposal, a company could increase efficiency in vehicle planning and redirect a truck to pick up further cargo. We developed a Fleetmanagement system for Switzerland which gathers all these positive aspects. The system is divided into two parts: the Base-Station and the Vehicle Unit.

Vehicle Unit

The Vehicle Unit uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine the exact location, speed and direction of your vehicle. The parameters will be filtered and stored on a microprocessor board. The Base-Station regularly collects these data with the digital cellular radio network. In case of an accident the Vehicle Unit automatically reports the position so that the Base-Station can take action (organise help and send a vehicle to replace the broken one). You are also able to track a vehicle real time, in case it has been stolen. This function gives you the possibility to locate your lost vehicle and gets it back with the help of the local police.

Base-Station

The Base-Station shows position information, speed and direction of every vehicle in a clearly arranged table. The data from the Vehicle Unit will be stored in files to post process them for billing and route optimisation. The system always provides you with the latest information about location, status of the vehicle and additional load which could be transported.

Message transfer between the Base-Station and the Vehicle Unit has not yet been implemented, but would be necessary to redirect drivers to get additional load and to support them in their daily business. In the future the location of all vehicles should be displayed on a map to improve user comfort. Furthermore the surveillance area for the Fleetmanagement system has to be enlarged to whole Europe to make the system accessible for a wider community.

The subject of the diploma thesis was the mobile identification system (MOBY) from Siemens. The activity is structured in two parts, one of them is theoretical, the other is practical.

The basic idea of MOBY is to store data in a mobile carrier. This is to identify objects, on which they are attached to. This allows manifold opportunities of employment, for example in logistic, manufacturing processes or traffic control systems. Siemens offers different families of products, two of them are MOBY-I and MOBY-L, which were compared to each other. A further comparison was made to products of Siemens' competitors, or even completely different methods of identification. Further we analysed the technical background of contactless information transfer.

The first job in the practical part was the implementation of the whole system, consisting of the MOBY itself and a control unit. After implementing we built a model for a demonstration. To realise a model which is related to practice, we decided on a simulation of a production process, consisting of three workplaces. Data for the whole working process will be read out of a carrier attached at a workpiecece and transferd to a control unit, which steers the construction by means of the this data.

Further an experimental setup for the subject automation was developped. First students should understand the functionality of MOBY and then programm the control unit for steering a production process with the demonstration model.

Introduction

USB is the subject of our diploma - Universal Serial Bus.Leading American companies have collaborated in setting up a new industry standard for serial PC communication. Compac, DEC, IBM, INTEL, Microsoft, NEC etc. are the companies that support USB with the follwing clear aim:In the near future the USB will interconnect all desktop peripherals of lower and medium speed with the personal computer. These are the floppy disk, CD ROM, mouse, scanner, keyboard and telephone as well as joysticks and data gloves.

The task

The USB is now the newest standard. More and more PC peripherals are being developed for USB.But although one can read about USB in almost every professional journal, nobody except a few elite resaerchers really knows what exactliy USB is.Our task was to get through the USB jungle and summarize the knowledge gained in a base for further studies.But our work should not be a purely theoretical matter. The second part of our task was to develop our own USB PC peripheral device.

Results

We found that the subject USB was not an easy one. There are practically no suitable books available and nobody could supply reliable information about this new subject.But in the end we think we have achieved some satisfactory results. We have compiled the basics of USB to provide a source of information that can help other students become familiar with the subject in an efficient way.Secondly we have developed a USB device in the shape of a customized joystick that submits data in the socalled "bulk transfer mode". Our device works well and will also be of commercial use in future.

The goal of our project was to realize a model car which is able to track a colored object for a defined distance. A demonstration application has to point out, how and where the system can be used.

This model car is controlled by the Handyboard (8 bit micro controller MC68HC11) which communicates with its environment via CAN bus. In addition to the Handyboard the car is equipped with a swiveling video camera and a vision system. The vision system is able to determine the position and the dimension of an object. The camera and vision system communicate with outside systems through serial asynchronous ports.

Our first step was to develop a CAN module (including an XC68HC705X4) to interface the serial port with the CAN bus. This development was necessary because the Handyboard uses a CAN while the camera and the vision system use a serial data interface for communication.Our next step was to design and implement an object tracking strategy which would enable the car to track an object. The strategy includes the control of the camera, the car steering and the drive system. The vision system extracts picture data ( X-, Y-coordinates and object dimension) and sends them to the Handyboard. The Handyboard computes the required commands for the camera, the steering and drive control unit.For the programming of the CAN module's micro controller we used the HIWARE development tool kit. We programmed the Handyboard in Interactive C.

We came to the conclusion that optimal light conditions are very important for successful tracking of the object.The programming of the Handyboard was extremely challenging because the Interactive C tool does not offer a debugger. Further, the capability of the control was restricted by the poor efficiency of the 8-bit Handyboard micro controller.

Overall, we successfully achieved the given goal. The car is able to track an object if the environmental interferences can be kept to a minimum.

The process engineering laboratory of the department of chemistry includes a Sulzer distillation plant.The obsolete control system and non-existent data acquisition prevent the plant from being used for the student trainig conveniently in classs. The aim of this diploma paper was, to replace the old hardware controllers by a visual software solution based on a personal computer. In addition the next step towards updating the plant - the total replacement of the plant control - had to be prepared - a task to be done after the completion of this diploma work. For the programming of the controllers and the visualisation of the process, we used the software package "LabVIEW 5.0" from National Instruments. The hardware interface between plant and PC was implemented with the latest FieldPoint modules, provided by the same company.After studying the LabVIEW programming techniques and getting acquainted with the FieldPoint modules, it was necessary to study the plant documentation very intensively. In interdisciplinary cooperation, i.e. with the help of an expert of the chemistry department we then set the plant step-by-step in operation and developed the essential understanding of the process which was very important for the further steps of our project.The two major sources of problems in course of our project were created by the data acquisition with the FieldPoint modules and the considerable number of defects of the plant which had to be identified with a rather extensive series of measurements. The six controllers (steam, cooling water, vacuum, feed, distillation and level) including their alarm functions could completely be implemented on the PC. The user now has the opportunity to vary all parameters unsing the graphical LAB View controls. The visualisation of process can be observed and accessed from any place in the world over the internet.