Embedded Systems Cellular Firmware Development(GSM)

Communicate with your embedded devices using cellular technology : Phone Call, SMS, M2M etc.

10+ hours | Complete Source Code Included

This course teaches you how to develop drivers and libraries for adding cellular functionality to your embedded device.

This course uses the STM32 microcontroller and the A6 GSM/GPRS chip. The A6 is a low-cost quad band GSM/GPRS chip equipped with 850/900/1800/1900MHz worldwide communication band. If you do not understand what a band means, do not worry, by the end of this course you will understand this and much more.

The drivers developed in this course will work on almost all cellular chips out there, this is because most of them use the UART for communication.

Some Highlights

If you want to understand the concept of a SIM card see section 2
If you want to know the difference between 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G see section 2
If you want to know the difference between GSM, LTE, WCDMA, see section 2
If you want to control hardware modules by SMS see section 10
If you want to control hardware modules by Phone Call see section 10
If you want to automatically send SMS or make a Phone Call by hardware trigger see section 10
If you want to develop a bare-metal realtime clock(RTC) driver see section 9
If you want to send sensor data by SMS triggered by an RTC alarm see section 10
If you want to send sensor data as SMS periodically with RTC see section 10

Preview

Lesson : Sending Sensor Data as SMS Periodically with RTC

In this lesson we see how to send sensor data as SMS periodically using the RealTime Clock (RTC)

So with that understood, let me tell you…:

Exactly What You’re Getting

This beginner course can be divided into 3major parts.

First Part

In this part we shall learn about some cellular technology concepts and the fundamentals of the GSM architecture.

Second Part

In the next part of the course we shall develop bare-metal drivers for interfacing the A6 chip to the STM32 microcontroller. After developing our drivers for connecting the A6 chip to the STM32 microcontroller we shall then go ahead and develop efficient data structures for managing communication data between the A6 chip and the STM32 microcontroller.

Last Part

In the final part we shall combine the drivers and data structures developed in the previous parts to develop a library for connecting to the cellular network. We shall then go ahead to develop some real world applications.

By the end of this course...

**You Will Be Able To :**

Understand the Fundamentals of Cellular Technology
Develop a Complete Library for using Cellular chips with STM32 microcontrollers
Develop First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Data Structure for Managing Communication Data
Develop Bare-Metal Firmware for Controlling Hardware Modules by SMS
Develop Bare-Metal Firmware for Controlling Hardware Modules by Phone Call
Develop Bare-Metal Firmware for automatically sending SMS or making Phone Call by Hardware Trigger
Develop Bare-Metal Firmware for automatically sending Sensor data when an RTC alarm occurs
Develop Bare-Metal Firmware for sending Sensor data periodically by RTC
Develop a Bare-Metal Realtime Clock (RTC) driver

Getting Started
Downloading CubeIDE
Installing CubeIDE
Getting the best out of this training
Getting the required Documentation
Setting Up the first project
Introduction to Cellular Technology
Comparing Wireless Solutions
An Overview of Cellular Technology
Understanding Duplex Transmission and Multiple Access
Analog and Digital Cellular Technology
The Evolution of Cellular Technology
Understanding the GSM Architecture
Developing the Debug UART Driver
Programming : Developing the Debug UART Driver (Part I)
Programming : Developing the Debug UART Driver (Part II)
Programming : Developing the Debug UART Driver (Part III)
Programming : Developing the Debug UART Driver (Part IV)
Developing the A6 UART Driver
Programming : Developing the A6 Chip UART Driver
Developing a Timebase for the System
Programming : Developing a System Tick (SysTick) Timer Driver
Developing a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) Data Structure for Managing Data
Introduction to FIFOs
Programming : Developing the FIFO Data Structure for Communication
Programming : Testing the FIFO
Developing the A6 GSM Chip Library
Programming : Copying Data from FIFO to UART
Programming : Finding responses in the RX Data Stream
Programming : Implementing an Interrupt Callback to process RX Data Stream
Programming : Initializing the A6 GSM Chip
Programming : Running some common commands

Developing A6 GSM Embedded Applications
Programming : Sending SMS Messages
Programming : Making a Phone Call
Programming : Dropping a Phone Call
Programming : Receiving SMS messages
Programming : Raw SMS messages in the RX Stream
Developing Some Hardware Modules for Building Real World Examples
Programming : Developing the LED Module
Programming : Developing the Push Button Module
Programming : Developing the ADC Initialization function
Programming : Developing the ADC Read function
Overview of the Real Time Clock (RTC)
Programming : Developing the RTC Initialization function
Programming : Developing the RTC Alarm Initialization function (Part I)
Programming : Developing the RTC Alarm Initialization function (Part II)
Programming : Developing the RTC Alarm Initialization function (Part III)
Programming : Developing the RTC Alarm Initialization function (Part IV)
Programming : Testing the RTC

Developing Some Real World Applications
Programming : Controlling Hardware from SMS
Programming : Controlling Hardware from a Phone Call
Programming : Sending SMS by Hardware Trigger
Programming : Sending Sensor Data as SMS Triggered by RTC Alarm
Programming : Sending Sensor Data as SMS Periodically with RTC

[BONUS] Interfacing a Keypad and a Display
Programming : Developing the Keypad Driver
Programming : Developing the OLED Display Driver

A little about me : Israel Ninsaw Gbati

Some of you may have taken some of my embedded systems courses from other online platforms.

This is my private channel.

I have been writing embedded firmware for years, I have built embedded devices like consumer products and robotic arms.

Till date I have

trained over 75,000 students in embedded

firmware development online till date

...including third year undergraduate university students in-person.

If you have taken any of my courses before you will know I start from the absolute basics, I do not assume that the student has any prior knowledge of the topic under discussion. You will also know that by the end of the course you understand the functions of every register used in developing the particular firmware or driver.

This method is the same for all of my published embedded systems courses.

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