Authors
Tom Parker
Publication date
2003/5
Institution
University of Bristol
Description
PIC microcontrollers (as used for the sensors in the Cyberjacket project in the ongoing wearables research at Bristol University) are currently programmed mainly in PIC assembler. This project provides a higher-level C API to provide a way to program the PIC’s without having to use assembler-which reduces the time taken to write new code, as well as improving maintainability of existing code. The API also adds a series of additional features not present in PIC assembler, including compile-time setting of minimum execution times for sections of code, loop structures and decision structures. The API gives the end-user programmer a way to build a code tree from simple segments, and then to generate code for that tree. Because of the use of an API within an existing language, we can use that language’s exisiting features to generate a wide variety of different pieces of PIC code from a single program, without the overheads of recompiling the program. This allows for greater specialisation in the PIC code, reducing the problems with the limited space of the PICs. This project is designed for the ARM-based Bitsy computer, but would work equally well on other systems with minimal resources.