13. Networking and communication¶
Individual Assignment¶
Design, build, and connect wired or wireless node(s) with network or bus addresses.
Group Assignment¶
Send a message between two projects. Link to group assignment
Networking and Communication Intro¶
The field of networking and communication includes the analysis, design, implementation, and use of local, wide-area, and mobile networks that link computers together. It is the interconnection of multiple devices, using multiple paths for the sending or receiving data or media.These data transfer through cable or wires or optic cables, or wireless media such as Wi-Fi. The Internet itself is a network that makes it feasible for nearly all computers in the world to communicate.
Communication is passing the message or commands from one board to another board. Some of the types of communications can be seen below;
1. Parallel Communication¶
According to Wikipedia in data transmission, parallel communication is a method of conveying multiple binary digits (bits) simultaneously. Parallel interfaces transfer multiple bits at the same time. They usually require buses of data - transmitting across eight, sixteen, or more wires. Data is transferred in huge, crashing waves of 1’s and 0’s. It transmit multiple bits of data at same time.they require buses of data to transmitting across eight, sixteen, or more wires.
2. Serial Communication¶
Serial communication is a type of digital communication where the data is transmitted bit by bit through a common channel. Since there is only one channel, the serial communication cannot send the whole byte at once, instead, the 8-bits are sent one by one in series. Therefore the serial communication is relatively slower.
a. Synchronous serial interface¶
Synchronous serial interface means both the sender and receiver shares the same clock. This makes it a more straightforward, faster serial transfer, but it also requires at least one extra wire between communicating devices. E.g. I2C, SPI.
b. Asynchronous serial interface¶
Asynchronous means the data is transferred without support from any external clock signal. This way of transmission is perfect for minimizing the required wires and I/O pins. This method is created trough Rx and TX pins in MCUs. Devices like GSM, Xbee, GPS etc. are connected using this mode.
Individual Assignment process¶
For this week I wanted to try to use ESP32 and coummunicate with it through a bluetooth terminal app through wireless serial communication. So I had to make a new board for it. I thought of making my final project board in the process and use it for this week’s assignment.
The board design for the final project board is given below and the details about the designing are given in my final project page;
Milled the board and the soldered board is given below;
Now that the board is all milled and soldered I started to learn how to program it. Firstly I needed to add the ESP32 board libraries to the arduino ide. To do that I browsed the web and found some tutorials and with the help of that I got the URL to be added in the ‘Preferences’ of Arduino ide. You can refer this link to learn how to instal the libraries.
First go to Preferences.
Paste the URL like shown below;
Go to Board Manager and then install the ESP32 by Espressif systems and then the ESP32 boards will be available in the Arduino ide.
Once done I inserted the arduino program in the arduino ide to make the ESP32 device visible for others. I kept the device name as ‘ESP32test’ in the arduino code;
After the code was uploaded, the serial monitor read,’the device is ready to be paired’ as shown below;
Now the ESP32 was ready to be paired and next up I downloaded a ‘serial bluetoothe terminal’ for android from playstore, installed it on my phone and then started searching for nearyby bluetooth devices and found the’ESP32test’ bluetooth device. I connected to it and in the terminal I typed ‘hello Thinley, Hello Bhutan’ and checked the serial monitor. The serial monitor started displaying the message. It was a success. The following images shows the process;
The message being displayed on the serial monitor of the seiral monitor of Arduino ide is shown in the image below;
The video showing me sending the data through my phone is given below;
Design files¶
Schematic file
Board design file