Hardware and Software development of a remote interface to program Embedded Systems

In recent years, the need of remote control of various electronic devices has grown more and more, especially in the automotive sector. Some of the main reasons are: to speed up design times, to facilitate the cooperation between companies (by testing in real-time various alternatives and/or changes in the projects), to limit the physical presence of employees in a laboratory or in a company, also due to the pandemic situation. This project intends to give a specific method to develop Hardware and Software design of a particular electronic device, that permits to program through a remote interface an embedded system, like an electronic control unit. The work was divided into two main parts: hardware design and programming/web design, both made with the help of a device called Raspberry Pi, in particular the Raspberry-Pi 3 model B+ was used, on which the Raspbian Operating System was installed. By means of this electronic device it was possible, through some simple programs, to manage its own GPIOs (General-Purpose-Input-Output pins), to which various electronic devices have been connected. In the first part of the hardware design, various electronic components, mainly produced by companies such as RS, Farnell and Digi-key, were carefully selected and integrated together, first mounted on a breadboard (base used to create circuit prototypes) to test and verify the functionality of each individual component, and then welded together in a multi-hole plate to reduce the amount of wiring. In the second part dedicated to programming/web design, the web application was created, with the development of a part called “front-end” (web interface with which the user can interact) written in HTML and JavaScript languages, and a “back-end” part (not accessible to the user and that communicates with the front-end) built with the help of NGINX and some servers. During the hardware design phase, Hardware-In-the-Loop tests were performed in order to verify the correct functionality of all the components which constitute the PCB: this procedure consists of connect external modules, which can be switched on/off from the Raspberry-Pi device, to the PCB and then test if they are detected from the RPi itself. At the end, the overall system, PCB and Application Web, were tested connecting the RPi with an ECU. This electronic device, which can be called Smarthub, was created ad hoc according to the needs of the Abinsula company where the work was carried out, to manage and program an electronic control unit. Anyway, it can be useful for many companies, in particular the multinational ones, which want to control and manage remotely in an efficient way various devices (telematic boxes, motherboards, production machines, etc..) from different sites and in any moment.