TI bestows innovative microcontroller design awards

Texas Instruments' DesignStellaris 2010 contest for innovative designs was won by Richard Wotiz's bicycle ABS brake system that uses a Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3-based 32bit microcontroller (MCU). The anti-lock brake system for bicycles beat out nearly 1,000 entries from more than 60 countries to bag the top award at the competition honouring technological advancements in the embedded industry.

The system uses TI's Stellaris LM3S9B96 MCU to control brake force and minimise wheel skid via a pair of stepper motors.

Two other outstanding projects were cited: Japanese Osamu Tamura's camera-based eye-tracking system that utilises the Stellaris MCU as a USB host, Ethernet node, and camera controller; and Frenchman Sylvain Davaine's GPIB screen saver that serves as a USB stick-based screenshot capture tool with a direct connection for all GPIB instruments, including lab equipment.

Sixteen other designs received special mentions. Among them were a six-axis articulated robot, a secure ACC PIN reader, a lithium-ion battery module, an electronic motorbike, a 2.4GHz RC radio system, a networked real-time gas leak detector, a hands-free USB mouse controlled via eye movements, and a handheld pollen sensor.