Cash Automation: porting and adaptation of the governing module of an automated cash recycler machine

Cash Automation: porting and adaptation of the governing module of an automated cash recycler machine The purpose of this thesis is the porting of the RTC firmware. This thesis has been produced within the R&D department of ARCA Technologies S.r.l., the producer of these devices. In particular in Bollengo (TO), where is based a branch of the company established in Mebane, North Carolina, USA. The porting process consists in a remaking of the firmware in order to be compliant with the new hardware components. In software engineering, porting means changing a software to make it work in a computing environment different from the original one, of course the functionality of the machine controlled by the software must be the same. This technique is needed especially to overcome shortage or obsolescence of old components and when new components, more efficient or cheaper, are available. The process of adaptation is meaningful only when its cost is cheaper than rewriting from scratch all the software/firmware, and since this scenario is often true, this approach is widely used. In detail this work aims to adapt the firmware of a micro-controller to communicate and handle a module called BAG, which is not present in the original code, and controlling the motors with new hardware drivers. It’s useful to point out that for the porting there are 2 main differences to be considered, as mentioned before the boards but also that the MBAG module whose management is supported only within the old board (PXA) firmware. Therefore 3 firmwares are involved: • the one on the “old” board which controls also the MBAG module • the one on the “new” board without the MBAG module • the new one which must manage the MBAG module on the “new “ board and that is designed and developed as thesis work. The BAG module is already handled by the firmware of another board, so the porting process is kind of a merge into the new board with some differences in information’s management. The part related to the new drivers PS01 for driving the motors has to be written from scratch. The whole board has been refactored but the microcontroller is the same (Renesas H8S). The two boards are usually identified by the different SOM: the old one PXA and the new one iMX6. The real time controller is the main module that controls motors, actuators, sensors and all other sub-modules needed for cash automation. This work focused mostly on the project’s firmware, however the full porting process required collaboration with other teams. The firmware team was explicitly tasked with adapting and altering the software to ensure compatibility with the new hardware. Other teams, such as the electronic group, also contributed to component-level development of the board. This collaborative effort guaranteed that the entire porting process was successful, with each team offering their unique skill to accomplish the intended result.