Application of Microcontroller in Science and Technology
The rapid growth in science and technology offers several advantages of using integrated circuits, microprocessors, microcontrollers, embedded chips, etc., in designing electrical and electronics projects and circuits by reducing their size, cost, and complexity. Using these embedded chips and microcontrollers is increasing due to its simplicity and benefits. The microcontrollers can be programmed to perform various tasks based on requirement of the circuit operation. Thus, simply by changing program instructions various tasks can be performed by a single circuit without changing any hardware circuitry of the project. Thus, the application of microcontroller in science and technology is increasing rapidly.
Application of Microcontroller
Types of Microcontrollers
The microcontrollers are typically used in electrical and electronics projects/circuits. There various types of microcontrollers such as 8051 family of microcontrollers, PIC microcontroller, and so on. But, 8051 microcontroller is frequently used in various applications due to its advantages compared to other microcontrollers. In this article, let us discuss about the application of microcontroller 8051 in science and technology, but, primarily let us have glance about what is microcontroller.
What is Microcontroller
Microcontroller Basics
What is microcontroller?, the microcontroller can be simply defined as a microchip or microcomputer or integrated circuit that contains programmable input/output peripherals, processor, and memory. There are various types of microcontrollers among which microcontroller 8051 is used frequently.
Microcontroller 8051
Microcontroller 8051 Basics
The microcontroller 8051 consists of four input/output ports, each port consists of eight pins which are configured as inputs/outputs based on logic state. If logic zero (0) is applied to appropriate input/output port bits, then the microcontroller pin acts as an output pin and there will be zero voltage at that appropriate pin. Similarly, if logic one (1) is applied to appropriate input/output port bits, then the microcontroller pin acts as an input pin and there will be 5V voltage at that appropriate pin.
Application of Microcontroller 8051
The use of microcontroller in various fields such as automobile, aeronautics, space, robotics, electronics, defense application, mobile communications, rail transport, industrial processing, and medical applications is rapidly increasing. Let us discuss about the practical application of microcontroller 8051 in some of the fields mentioned above.
Application of Microcontroller 8051 in Robotics
The advancement in transportation technology is developing the efficient robotic vehicles which can be used for transportation without driver. This obstacle avoidance robotic vehicle (prototype) is one of the major application of microcontroller in robotics.
Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Vehicle Project by Edgefxkits.com
This robotic project is designed to detect and avoid the obstacles on the robotic vehicle’s path. For this purpose, an ultrasonic sensor pair is used in this project, which is interfaced to microcontroller. If any obstacle is sensed by the ultrasonic sensor, then a signal is given to the microcontroller which in turn generates an appropriate output signal. This output signal is fed to motor driver IC which is interfaced to the motors of the robotic vehicle.
Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Vehicle Project Block Diagram by Edgefxkits.com
Thus, based on the signals received from the motor driver IC the motors can change the direction (left, right, forward, and backward) of the robotic vehicle to avoid the obstacles (if any are detected by ultrasonic sensor). The speed of the motors can be controlled using pulse width modulation (PWM) technique.
Application of Microcontroller 8051 in Medical Applications
Patient health monitoring system with location details by GPS over GSM Project by Edgefxkits.com
The application of microcontroller 8051 in medical applications made revolutionary changes in the medical field. The patient health monitoring system with location details by GPS over GSM is an electronic project based on the application of microcontroller. This project is designed for tracking the patient’s location such that it enables the facility to reach patient location quickly in case of emergency. With this project, the patient’s body temperature can be monitored wirelessly using GPS and a message can be sent to the concerned/authorized person using GSM.
Patient health monitoring system with location details by GPS over GSM Project Block Diagram by Edgefxkits.com
The block diagram of the project is shown in the above figure which consists of various blocks such as GPS modem & GSM modem block interfaced to the microcontroller block, power supply block, temperature sensor, EEPROM, LCD display, and keypad.
If the temperature of the patient’s body increases beyond the preset temperature, then the temperature sensor sends signal to the microcontroller. Thus, the microcontroller activates the GSM modem to send SMS to the concerned person based on details stored in EEPROM memory. Similarly, the location details of the patient are also sent using a GPS modem and the information is displayed on the LCD display.
Application of Microcontroller 8051 in Electronics
EVM-Electronic Voting Machine by Edgefxkits.com
The electronic voting machine is a practical application of microcontroller 8051 in electronics. The voting machine designed using this project is having eight contestants capacity. Thus, eight push buttons are associated for eight contestants and a master button for polling authority. By using the master button, multiple polling by single voter can be avoided as each voter need to get an approval for their vote (only one vote can be polled by one voter to any one contestant).
EVM-Electronic Voting Machine Block Diagram by Edgefxkits.com
The block diagram of the project is shown in the above figure which consists of various blocks such as a power supply block, push buttons, microcontroller block, LCD display, buzzer, EEPROM, and transistor. The vote approved by the officer can be indicated by buzzer sound and polled vote is stored in EEPROM. The total number of votes polled to each contestant is displayed using the LCD display interfaced with the microcontroller.
Similarly, there are numerous applications of 8051 microcontroller in science and technology and a few more of them can be listed as below
- Prepaid energy meter using microcontroller and GSM modem
- Transformer/Generator health monitoring remotely over internet
- Power theft detection and intimation to control room using GSM
- Controlling remote industrial plant using SCADA
- Avoiding excessive electric bills for industries and commercial establishments
- Induction motor speed control using Arduino
- Density based traffic signal system controlled using a smartphone
- Virtual display of messages using propeller drive LEDs
- Digital sensor based temperature control
- High power dual converter using a pair of SCR bridge
- LAN like setup of multiple microcontrollers
- Positioning of dish antenna using the remote
- I2C protocol based auto dialing on burglary detection
Do you want to design and implement an innovative application of microcontroller on your own? Then, feel free to approach us for any technical help regarding the implementation of 8051 microcontroller based projects.
