Issue
93 April 1998
Picaro:
A Stamp-like Interpreted Controller
by
Tom Napier
For
years, Tom’s been itching to control the instruction
sets of processors. Using a PIC, some memory, and
an interpreter, he bypasses the processor hurdle
and writes his own language. He shows you how to
do it, too.
Many
people have done research on advanced building-control
software using the PC, or some other "large"
platform, intent on building a truly intelligent system.
However, there haven’t been that many applications
deployed in the marketplace.
In
this article, I want to show you a software technique
that exhibits machine learning but in a small and simple
implementation that can run on any microcontroller.
The algorithm attempts to understand the comings and
goings of people and to anticipate when they might arrive
next so that it can provide advance heating, cooling,
lighting, and so forth.
