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Final concept of operation RELEASED + more

A project log for IAMCIty = )

Secure IoT idea for “Intelligent Autonomous system for Monitoring and Control of Intersections” brought to life with #2015HackadayPrize

dimitar-tomovDimitar Tomov 08/06/2015 at 01:380 Comments

Very Quick update:

* Finally released the final "Concept of operation" of #IAMCIty = ) ( Being self-ironic ;-) )

* Also today I'll be releasing the 1st of many technical presentation

* More good news Surprisingly as completely out of the blue received amazing sponsorship offer from F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH (https://www.fs-net.de/) , a German-based company producing Single Board Computers and Modules for industrial purposes , and of course not only for that one purpose. They expressed the wish to grant me a Development platform for IAMCIty! And platform exactly with SoloX SoC. More valuable information about the generous sponsorship and the platform itself + links with technical details find below. But even more detail stay tuned for the presentation mention above, to follow today.

* Will be releasing the IAMCIty LOGO again today ! A lot of catching up to do.

* Added Freescale tag to the Project - why , well it's for more than one reason, keep reading below if curious :-)

Before I give you the interesting info let me say that past months with no update on IAMCITY for me actually were very extensive.Tody is going to be one of the peaks, but it's for a very good reason - To push forward IAMCIty and start the actual RnD process. That can make me only happier than before ! And it does :-) It will be even super if someone following the project gets some joy from all the updates that are and will take place today.



All of the Final conpect of operation can be possible only with extensive, enhanced and modern Security features of the Computational Device. In an embedded systems those device where once only Microcontroller units (MCU), then came the System on Chips (SoC) solutions. Now there are Microprocessor Unit (MPU) type of Solutions and finally Hybrid solutions, which fall into the category of SoC. Those hybrids can integrate both MPU, MCU and even FPGA. Which is the really interesting part. For this PoC the choice fall upon i.MX6 SoloX which features such Security extensions. And is to a sense hybrid solution for me as it features asymmetric multicore design. Combining both worlds of Cortex-M4 and Cortex-A9. My very rough definition would be “close to real-time MCU” plus “application MCU”. What makes it stand-out from most other ARM-based SoC, even having similar internal architecture. SoloX includes built-in secure boot mechanism and surrounding built-in peripherals for that, then we have the hardware accelerated encryption peripherals built-in and even ARM IP for securing one embedded application called TrustZone. Where TrustZone received its power features in ARMv8, ARMv7 architecture still has it's edge, even there.



Thanks to F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH (Official company web-site: https://www.fs-net.de/ ), I'll be given a development platform based on i.MX6 SoloX SoC that I will use for IAMCIty Research & Development. The platform it-self will have at its heart this module “efus™A9X“ holding the SoloX CPU/SoC and necessary peripherals, including of course RAM and Flash memory for the firmware ( official product page: https://www.fs-net.de/en/products/efus/efusa9x-freescale-imx-6solox/ ). For the actual RnD process of the device IAMCIty is going to be that module is going to be installed in a Carrier / Base board “efus™ Base Board“ (official product page: https://www.fs-net.de/en/products/startinterfaces/efus-base-board/ ). NB: Currently the Base board for “efus™ A9X” is not yet officially released.



NB: SoloX is not pin-to-pin compatible with other Members of the i.MX6 series SoC (please check images from 08.06 project log).



So thank You again F&S Elektronik Systeme for not only deciding to sponsor me and IAMCIty in particular, but also to in-fact deciding to give early access to such hardware as one complete EVM/Development platform for SoloX. And this way IAMCIty received its Hardware foundation = ) And also the saved budget on the platform can go for other needed parts in the process of developing IAMCIty. Again possible, because of the generous Sponsorship !



Also I would like to thank Freescale for extensive communication over Twitter, which made me even more driven to push for IAMCITy. That shows there's a usefulness in social networks, but more is to show that leading companies are taking time to read-understand-reply to an individual. Which is … well – amazing in my book. I've now added of course the Freescale tag to IAMCIty project :-) For more than one reason, and not only HW related, being direct ;-)



UDOO also responded to my messages on Twitter and for that I'm also thankful. They put an effort to follow the tread and reply more than once as well – I appreciate it !



On the non-technical part I must thank greatly to @Sophi Kravitz from Hackaday.io, who literally didn't gave up to 'ping' me about IAMCIty. It was not the count for sure, which was not so high, but the content that the “pings” contained. Which from my perspective where indeed very brief, yet very well directed. And the last ping had the greatest impact to be honest. But to be completely honest , only because the previous messages have created the foundation for that. Big thumbs-up for the efforts and time Sophi ^_^



Again - Thanks to everyone who made that project go forward , again ! Because that was one of those moment when you are not sure if you can keep up with your own interests and desires due to constantly evolving dynamic everyday life. And there's the technical twist that you have to keep moving forward, cause there's no pause of technical advancements nowadays. One way or another tomorrow something NEW will be invented and other will be getting into release to production. So keep pushing forward. Direction is only one way => FORWARD.



Dimitar Tomov
Grenoble / France
06.08.2015

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