This project was my final year thesis for Mechanical Engineering. Co-authored with my friend Julian Sanders in 2004.

The idea behind this was to develop a combined engine\chassis ECU with integrated data logging. The premise was that microprocessors had developed to the stage where a single core could handle both control and data logging\processing tasks. It was hoped that over several projects this would be developed to the point where it could be used by the SAE team (MonashMotorsport).

The project was a major undertaking, especially for two mechanical engineers with little electrical experience, especially using 32bit embedded control. We did receive some lifesaving tips and code from Ian Murphy, an engineer for Williams F1 team.

Within the academic year we managed to build prototype hardware (see above and bellow), code the microprocessor and write some PC interface software in Visual Basic. We ran tests on the peripheral hardware and ran some simulation to 'load' the processor and judge performance.

Please take a look at the following images and notes on the project. And remember, we are only Mechanical engineers, some aspects of the project clearly shows that, but it's all experience!

Above is a picture showing the evaluation board that held the microprocessor we used. The processor is a Power PC chip from Motorola\Freescale ( http://www.freescale.com). The MPC-555 is still a reasonably powerful chip but has been quickly overtaken by other parts in the product family. These cores are mainly used for demanding automotive applications.

The board pictured is the Axiom PB-0555 (www.Axman.com).This evaluation board is the most striped down available for these cores. Basically it has an RS-232 chip and power supply, nothing else. Because these chips only come in BGA packages you more or less have to purchase an evaluation kit in order to use them. The best part about this board is that it's cheap (~AU$200).

Code WARRIOR.