Book Image

Embedded Programming with Modern C++ Cookbook

By : Igor Viarheichyk
Book Image

Embedded Programming with Modern C++ Cookbook

By: Igor Viarheichyk

Overview of this book

Developing applications for embedded systems may seem like a daunting task as developers face challenges related to limited memory, high power consumption, and maintaining real-time responses. This book is a collection of practical examples to explain how to develop applications for embedded boards and overcome the challenges that you may encounter while developing. The book will start with an introduction to embedded systems and how to set up the development environment. By teaching you to build your first embedded application, the book will help you progress from the basics to more complex concepts, such as debugging, logging, and profiling. Moving ahead, you will learn how to use specialized memory and custom allocators. From here, you will delve into recipes that will teach you how to work with the C++ memory model, atomic variables, and synchronization. The book will then take you through recipes on inter-process communication, data serialization, and timers. Finally, you will cover topics such as error handling and guidelines for real-time systems and safety-critical systems. By the end of this book, you will have become proficient in building robust and secure embedded applications with C++.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

Exploring pulse-width modulation

Digital pins can only be in one of two states: either HIGH or LOW. An LED connected to a digital pin can also only be in one of two states: on or off, correspondingly. But is there a way to control the brightness of this LED? Yes, we can use a method called Pulse-width Modulation (PWM).

The idea behind PWM is simple. We limit the amount of power delivered by the electrical signal by turning it on or off periodically. This makes the signal pulse with some frequency and the amount of power is proportional to the width of the pulsethe time when the signal was HIGH.

For example, if we turn a pin to HIGH for 10 microseconds and then LOW for another 90 microseconds in a loop, a device connected to that pin receives 10% of the power that would be delivered if the pin were always HIGH.

In this recipe, we will learn how...