The idea for the ChameleonARM platform was created when NXP introduced the new 32-bit ARM7 single-chip LPC23xx family with its rich set of on-chip interfaces for applications requiring various types of serial communications.
The ChameleonARM board is also a tool for system developers who want to familiarise themselves with the LPC23xx family as a complete reference platform – with installed demo software showing both the processor power within the ARM7 environment as well as the communication interfaces such as Ethernet (10/100 Mbits/s), USB and CAN.
Featured with power-over-Ethernet, the board is independent from an external power supply and could be used in applications where cables cause complications.
Hardware
Together with Fraunhofer IMS, EBV developed the board as a flexible system based on the LPC23xx microcontroller family. A power supply is possible via USB, power-over-Ethernet and DC jack.
The board is equipped with all the necessary transceivers and connectors to support the MCU communication interfaces including USB, CAN and Ethernet.
The size of the board is 75 x 130 mm and is built as a modular system, where additional functionality can be supported via EBV standard connectors (120-pin Hirose). Add-on boards such as analogue input boards, graphic accelerator, Lon networking and audio/Codec, can be plugged in by using the Hirose connectors.
Software
The ChameleonARM board is provided with installed demo software showing the following features:
network connection via Ethernet and USB (RNDIS)
automatic network configuration (ZeroConf)
automatic IP assignment (Auto-IP)
device can be registered as service on the network (DNS-SD)
simple access to the device using its name (MDNS, netbios)
real-time visualisation of measurement values / parameters (Java based)
video streaming (using the web server)
user access protection with user / group permissions (HTTP authentication)
resource saving time-tested TCP / IP protocol stack
all necessary Ethernet protocols included (ARP, DHCP,ICMP, DNS, NTP)
high transfer rates (Ethernet, 100Mbps)
routing between several networks (NAT, port forwarding, DNS-routing)
The remote NDIS (RNDIS) network access via USB is based on Thesycon‘s USB device software stack and implements an Ethernet connection with the standard RNDIS drivers shipped with Windows. The Ethernet interface driver, the complete TCP/IP protocol stack and the advanced demo functionality that combines both Ethernet and USB networking, comes from the sevenstax embedded Internet protocol library. Both software components are optimised for the LPC23xx hardware platform and perfectly interact on any embedded system with or without an operating system environment.
