Featured post

Arduino FreeRTOS Mutex Examples

In this section, we will explain using an example to demonstrate mutexes in Arduino using freeRTOS. There are two freeRTOS Mutex examples in this tutorial, the first example demands some hardware (LCD) While the second does not need any hardware, you can try out both if you have the resources.

In the last tutorial, we considered in detail: semaphores and mutexes and we also established the difference between binary semaphores and mutexes.
Just for a review:Recall that a mutex is a locking mechanism that implements the take and gives functionality in itself, unlike a binary semaphore. See this tutorial if you have not before continuing.
Example 1: Protecting the LCD Resource Using Mutex in freeRTOS
Program Description

In this program, we Demonstrated the use a 16x2 LCD display to implement a mutex.

The LiquidCrystal library works with all LCD displays that are compatible with the Hitachi HD44780 driver. you can usually tell them by their 16-pin interface.

THE CIRCUIT

* LCD RS pin to digital…
Post a Comment

My Experience at the Largest Thermal Power Plant (1.32GW) in Africa

In the course of my studies as an electrical and electronic engineering student, I was privileged to undertake a training program in Egbin Power Plc, it is arguably the largest single thermal power generating plant in black Africa with an installed capacity of 1320MW which is currently about to be extended.

It was a very insightful experience and I learned so much about the power industry.

However, for the sake of this post, I am drafting this to actually introduce the major concepts I learned first hand in the power plant and you will enjoy the series if you have a theoretical background. If you don't, it will spur up your studies when you are being introduced to the theories of how it works.

I will be breaking down this series into the following:

  • How power is generated in  a thermal power plant: In this post, we provided a walk through to how power is generated in a steam power plant, from the purification of water - citing the processes common bore-hole drilled water pass through to meet process specifications and also citing what happens when these specs are not met

  • Steam turbine generators and Excitation: In this post, we introduced the steam turbine generators, its working principles and how they generate power. The field flashing concept was explained and shown. And how the generator is able to sustain excitation indefinitely.

  • Black start: How to start up the power generation when there is an outage or system collapse. The black start system which is made up the gas turbine generator, the diesel engine will be explored.

  • Gas turbine generators: Here we explained the working principle and operation of the gas turbine generator. How it works literally using field experience and the difference or comparison between it and the steam turbine generators

  • Feed Water Heaters and their relevance in a thermal power plant: Feedwater heaters are pieces of equipment and part of the various units involved in power generation. Why can't the power stations do without the feedwater heater? Why are they placed along the lines of the feedwater? What role do they play? How economizers and deaerators are part of the feedwater heaters, are all considered within the post.

  • Instrumentation and Control in the plant

  • Major skill sets required from students

  • Understanding elementary Electrical drawings

  • Piping and Instrument Diagrams (P&ID)

Some of the articles are still under preparation, we will link to them as soon as we are done

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Arduino FreeRTOS Tutorial 05: Binary Semaphores and Mutexes

Semaphores and Mutexes are interesting operating system concept that is used for synchronization, resource management and protecting access to resources.

So far in our FreeRTOS Tutorial series, we have dealt with tasks and scheduling algorithms. In the process of the tutorial, we stumbled across an Operating system's concept called Semaphores and Mutexes, though you may not have noticed it.

The Idea

You might have observed while playing around with task priorities, that a high priority task could pre-empt a lower priority task at any time whether or not the low priority task has completed its execution. This is a common feature in a multi-tasking environment and it can cause data corruption, data integrity losses, etc. Thus, there is a need to protect resources, and control access using semaphores and mutexes.

Students usually find it difficult to understand this concept so I will be given an explanation using some illustrations, and also provide a code snippet for implementation o…
Read more

Arduino FreeRTOS Beginner Tutorial: Task Creation, Scheduling, Deleting

Tasks are basically functions that you want to execute. A task can be as simple as blinking a led, printing a string on an LCD.

Your program or embedded application is a combination of various tasks.

In the previous tutorial, we showed how to install freeRTOS in Arduino and we have also covered a quick introduction to RTOS.

In this tutorial we will be considering the following:

How to create tasks
Prioritizing tasks
How to delete tasks
How to run the scheduler
Features of tasks in freeRTOS.
In free RTOS, tasks have some features that you must adhere to when creating them.

It must not have an end. There should be no terminating statement (return statement)
A task should run continuously. To implement this, you will need to use an infinite loop in the tasks
Tasks have priorities. The priority of a task determines its pre-emptive nature. A task of higher priority can pre-empt one of lower priority. This is useful to enable you to achieve your hard and soft real-time requirements.
How to Create …
Read more

Understanding the operation of I2C Bus

I2C pronounced as "I squared C" OR "I two C" is an acronym for Inter-Integrated Circuit Bus. It is a serial synchronous bus which we will be considering in this post. It is a very unique bus with a two-wire interface and can connect to about 127 slaves for a 7-bit address system, it can use 7-bit or 10-bit for slave addressing.
I2C Bus
I2C  is a serial and synchronous two-wire interface used to interface low-speed devices and peripherals like the EEPROMs, A/D and D/A converters, sensor networks, other I/O  to microcontrollers in embedded systems. It was invented by Philips and popular amongst all major IC manufacturers.  The two wires in I2C bus are:

SCLK: For the serial clock signal
SDA: Serial Data line for transfer of bits (data and address and control information)
I2C Features

Two-wire interface
Synchronous: All parties involved in the communication are tied to the same clock
Uses 7 bit or 10-bit slave address
Can address up to 256 peripherals in a 7-bit address mode
Us…
Read more