A platform for building PIC applications for control and instrumentation

The authors have developed a minimal software environment for PIC 18F-series microcontrollers that can he used to rapidly develop mechatronic applications. The environment includes initialization of commonly utilized hardware features such as analog-to-digital conversion, pulse-width modulation control, serial communication and a programmable interrupt-driven timing loop that can he used to provide a sampling interval for a discrete-time control system. The environment also supports simple mathematical operations, interfacing with an LCD display, capturing user input and developing a flexible menu-style user interface. The software will be publicly available to facilitate rapid development of PIC-based mechatronic systems.