This book provides practicing scientists and engineers a tutorial on the fundamental concepts and use of microcontrollers. Today, microcontrollers, or single integrated circuit (chip) computers, play critical roles in almost all instrumentation and control systems. Most existing books arewritten for undergraduate and graduate students taking an electrical and/or computer engineering course. Furthermore, these texts have beenwritten with a particular model of microcontroller as the target discussion. These textbooks also require a requisite knowledge of digital design fundamentals. This textbook presents the fundamental concepts common to all microcontrollers. Our goals are to present the over–arching theory of microcontroller operation and to provide a detailed discussion on constituent subsystems available in most microcontrollers. With such goals, we envision that the theory discussed in this book can be readily applied to a wide variety of microcontroller technologies, allowing practicing scientists and engineers to become acquainted with basic concepts prior to beginning a design involving a specific microcontroller. We have found that the fundamental principles of a given microcontroller are easily transferred to other controllers. Although this is a relatively small book, it is packed with useful information for quickly coming up to speed on microcontroller concepts.
Steven F. Barrett, Ph.D., P.E.,received a B.S. in Electronic Engineering Technology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1979, an M.E.E.E. from the University of Idaho at Moscow in 1986, and a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1993. He was formally an active duty faculty member at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado and is now the Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Wyoming. He is a member of IEEE (senior) and Tau Beta Pi (chief faculty advisor). His research interests include digital and analog image processing, computer-assisted laser surgery, and embedded controller systems. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Wyoming and Colorado. He co-wrote with Dr. Daniel Pack several textbooks on microcontrollers and embedded systems. In 2004, Barrett was named ""Wyoming Professor of the Year"" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and in 2008 was the recipient of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in Higher Education, Engineering Education Excellence Award.
Daniel J. Pack is the Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (UTC). Prior to joining UTC, he was Professor and Mary Lou Clarke Endowed Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Texas, San Antonio, after serving as Professor (now Professor Emeritus) of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), CO, where he served as Director of the Academy Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, a Master of Science degree in Engineering Sciences, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University, Harvard University, and Purdue University, respectively. He also spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Lincoln Laboratory. Dr. Pack has co-authored seven textbooks on embedded systems (including 68HC12 Microcontroller: Theory and Applications and Embedded Systems: Design and Applications with the 68HC12 and HCS12) and published over 130 book chapters, technical journal/transactions, and conference papers on unmanned systems, cooperative control, robotics, pattern recognition, and engineering education. He is the recipient of a number of teaching and research awards including Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year Award, Frank J. Seiler Research Excellence Award, Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Professor Award, Academy Educator Award, and Magoon Award. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical Engineering Honorary), Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honorary), IEEE (senior member), and the American Society of Engineering Education. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Colorado and currently serves as Editor-at-Large for Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems and as Associate Editor for IEEE Systems Journal. His research interests include unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligent control, automatic target recognition, robotics, and engineering education.
