FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR), Chandigarh organised a Faculty Development Program through ICT on “Embedded C Programming of Microcontrollers” from 2nd - 6th May 2016 at Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon. Twenty two Faculty Members from various departments attended the Faculty Development Program.

National Institute for Technical Teacher’s Training, Chandigarh always brings forward many opportunities for faculty to excel in their career and help them adapt to technological changes and adopt new methods for student’s performance evaluation.

On 2nd May 2016, the Inauguration Ceremony was initiated by Dr. Ritula Thakur, Assistant Professor, NITTTR Chandigarh. Prof (Dr.) Karanjit Singh discussed about the importance of the topic in context with present scenario and its future applications. Dr. Ritula then discussed about the basics and importance of embedded C Programming in detail. She also discussed the various scopes and applications of it. Then, during the first session, Introduction to Microprocessors and microcontrollers was discussed by Dr. Thakur. After that, Architecture of 8051 was discussed by Dr. Baban Kumar, Senior Scientist, CSIO, Chandigarh, in which he explained that Microcontroller is a digital circuit device and it requires clock for its operation. He said that Microcontroller 8051 has an on-chip oscillator which works as a clock source for Central Processing Unit and as the output pulses of oscillator are stable therefore it enables synchronized work of all parts of 8051 Microcontroller.

On 3rd May 2016, Dr. Ritula Thakur discussed Programming Languages of Microcontrollers, in which she explained that every word is considered by the CPU as a command being executed during the operation of the microcontroller. It is much easier to deal with hexadecimal number system, the executable code is often represented as a sequence of hexadecimal numbers called a Hex code. It used to be written by the programmer. Dr. Thakur explained that All instructions that the microcontroller can recognize are together called the Instruction set. As for PIC microcontrollers the programming words of which are comprised of 14 bits, the instruction set has 35 different instructions in total. Then, Dr. Ritula Thakur explained about various concepts related to C Programmig of 8051, followed by a practical session.

On 4th May 2016, Mr. Tejinder Devgan, IISER, Mohali took the session on Circuit Simulations Using Proteus Software, in which he discussed that Graph based simulation is similar to conventional SPICE simulation where we can first draw the circuit, set-up source generators, select points to be monitored and then run the simulator. When the simulation is complete the results are displayed on it. After that, Dr. Baban Kumar discussed about the industrial applications of Microcontroller. He said that Industrial sensors include the electronics required to detect, position or identify an object or rotating axis in a factory-automated system. They utilize a variety of technologies, including inductive, magneto-resistive, capacitive, optical, pressure and ultrasonic. Dr. Kumar discussed that Industrial communications are at the heart of automated systems. He said that numerous defined standards exist, and these standards continue to grow as new industrial Ethernet protocols emerge. Dr. Kumar explained about Atmel microcontrollers and explained that they provide the peripherals and the internal system architecture required to efficiently interface your product with leading field busses, industrial Ethernet standards, and growing wireless communications.

After that, Dr. Ritula Thakur explained about interfacing with LCD, in which she discussed that LCD display is an inevitable part in almost all embedded projects. It consists of sixteen rows and two columns of LCD dot matrices. LCD can be interfaced with microcontroller in 4 Bit or 8 Bit mode and it differs in how data is send to LCD. In 8 bit mode to write a character, 8 bit ASCII data is send through the data lines and data strobe is given through E of the LCD. LCD commands which are also 8 bit are written to LCD in similar way.

On 5th May 2016, Dr. Ritula Thakur gave the brief introduction about Keil Software and Universal Programmer. She discussed that when we have to start a new project, we can simply select the microcontroller we use from the Device Database and the µVision IDE sets all compiler, assembler, linker, and memory options. Dr. Thakur discussed that the Keil µVision Debugger accurately simulates on-chip peripherals. The advantage is that the simulation helps us to understand hardware configurations and avoids time wasted on setup problems. Additionally, with simulation, we can write and test applications before target hardware is available.

After that, Dr. S. Chatterji, Senoir Scientist, CSIO, Chandigarh discussed about speed control of DC motor using microprocessors. He discussed that how to control the speed of a DC Motor using Pulse Width Modulation. Dr. Chatterji explained that using PWM, we can easily control the average power delivered to a load and by thus we can easily control the speed of the DC Motor. He said that width modulation can be easily generated using the inbuilt CCP module of a PIC Microcontroller. CCP stands for Capture/Compare/PWM. CCP modules are available with a number of PIC Microcontrollers.

On the Last Day, 6th May 2016, Mr. Alok Deep, M.Tech Scholar and Dr. Ritula Thakur explained about the various concepts of C Programming of 8051, in which she discussed the hardware circuits such as servo motor and dc motors with Arduino. She also explained the main pin diagram of Arduino and explained the Arduino IC in detail, giving the usage of each and every IC and every data pin(Either Input/ Output). She also explained the Arduino programming for Servo motor and showed from various videos as to how Arduino can be connected with servo motors for different applications. She gave a working example of a Drilling Machine to demonstrate this connection.

In the end, there was the valediction ceremony, in which Dr. Ritula Thakur and Dr. Baban Kumar discussed the research scope of the field along with many application areas. The workshop proved to be very fruitful as the participants learnt a lot about on Embedded C Programming of Microcontrollers and usage of Keil Software.