Design and implementation of an intelligent peripheral controller

Abstract

The number of peripherals which can be interconnected to transfer data is on the rise as a result of innovation and consumer demand. The most common peripheral interface in use is the Universal Serial Bus (USB). Currently, however, it is necessary to connect these devices to a PC: in order to transfer or process data intelligently. Therefore, the motivation of this dissertation is to develop an intelligent, re-programmable system that would allow a user to bypass a computer, and directly connect peripherals. Following an extensive literature review, a Beagle Board Rev C4 development kit running Ubuntu Linux was selected as the target device. This is because it supported the ARM Cortex-AS processor and a variety of I/O ports onboard, including USB, SO card, HDMI and audio connectors. The system was implemented as a set of C programs representing the tasks that need to be carried out when various combinations of peripherals are inserted. The programs would be then compiled on the target board using GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). Each feature implemented was verified to operate correctly, and the IPC can be automatically re-programmed to perform additional functionalities by inserting a pen drive with the appropriate executable program. The performance of the board was analyzed and results for the execution time and CPU utilization of the programs were obtained. The programs were profiled with gprof and graphical traces of program execution were carried out. The performance of the set of programs running on the board was compared with the same set running on the laptop, which was set as a benchmark. Execution times were found not to vary much for small or large transfers of data, but were found to differ for medium-sized files. The objective of designing a low-cost option was achieved by reducing unnecessary hardware such as a screen. In fact, most operations could be executed automatically, or at most with the help of an IVR system (e.g. when unmounting a pen drive from the system).