Embien with hands on experience in developing BSPs for various platforms has ported Windows Embedded Compact 2013 on to the Cubietruck board. This blog demonstrated a sample IoT application running on top of the Cubietruck/WinCE platform with internally generated data.
Windows Embedded Compact/Windows CE on Cubietruck
Cubietruck, powered by Allwinner A20, with its rich connectivity options is an ideal platform for IoT applications. The sub-100$ open source platform, when used with Windows CE, proves to be a powerful combination indeed leveraging the low-cost OS running .NET applications along with powerful software stack for IoT.
The board features the following
- SoC: Allwinner A20
- CPU: ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1 GHz dual-core
- GPU: Mali-400 MP2 Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1
- Display: supports HDMI and VGA 1080P display output on-board
- 2 GiB DDR3 @ 480 MHz
- 8 GB NAND flash built-in
- 1x microSD slot
- 1x SATA 2.0 port (Hard Disk of 2.5″)
- 10/100/1000 RTL8211E Gigabit Ethernet
- 2x USB Host, 1x USB OTG, 1x CIR
- S/PDIF, headphone, VGA and HDMI audio out, mic and line-in via extended pins
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board with PCB antenna (Broadcom BCM4329/BCM40181)
- 54 extended pins including I2S, I2C, SPI, CVBS, LRADC x2, UART, PS2, PWMx2, TS/CSI, IRDA, LINEIN&FMIN, TVINx4 with 2.0 pitch connectors.
The below videos shows Windows CE on Cubietruck with a demo application used to render various graphical data.
IoT application Demo with WEC2013
Internet of Things and Smart Connectivity are transforming many industries and enabling manufacturers to contend with the challenges of today’s rapidly changing business environment. Microsoft is betting big on IoT by investing a lot on Windows 10 IoT platform. Its predecessor, Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is also ideally suited for IoT applications. It supports a variety of connectivity options like WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth and USB. It enables the devices to be connected to Internet or the local network and share data. Intelligent action on the data can help gain deep insight to the process and used to device ways to improvise them. Powered by this Real Time OS, reliability and durability are assured.
Windows CE also supports programming interfaces such as Win32, MFC, ATL, and support for .NET applications, which include support for networking, internet browsers, media players, and so on. The small footprint, componentized, real-time operating system also supports SMP whereby it can run on multiple processor cores. Low cost licensing also relieves the user various risks associated when using unverified open source components. Security offered by the system is also very important consideration in today’s’ world.
The graphical visualization and data browsing shown in this basic IoT demo is only a very few of the potential possibilities with Windows CE running on Cubietruck. Data could be gathered from various sensors over multiple interface options available and sent to cloud like Azure, Bluemix etc and intelligent decisions taken. Quicker local decision could be taken in the system itself.
About Embien: Embien Technologies is a leading technology solution provider in Internet-of-Thing Technologies. An IDH for leading silicon vendor, Embien has successfully executed many projects like IoT in Wearables, M2M Connectivity etc. Also we offer solutions and services for Windows Embedded Compact (WinCE). We also offer boot optimization services to reduce the time to show the first application on boot and power optimization services to prolong battery life. Feel free to contact us for your Window CE BSP/Driver as well as embedded design services requirements.