Hey. I am trying to design a pick to light system ( just started looking into it now) and would like to for some general advice.
For those who do not know what is pack to light system have a look here:
https://sdi.systems/pack-to-light/
So my general idea is that I will have a number / each one will have and LED and some sort of sensor(IR, Proximity?). I will be scanning the barcode of the item and based on that item, certain boxes will be lit indicating that I need to grab from that particular box.
Now my main concern is what microcontroller to pick for this particular task. Since I am not a programming or electronics expert, I would like to make it as simple to use but have a possibility to expand the system later. I have experience with Arduinos and stm32 mcu's. Since I will need a large amount of items to sort ( Lets say up to 50 boxes), each box will need to have a sensor and an LED connected to it.
What are my options in terms of suitable microcontrollers/ dev boards /nucleo boards available in the market?
What sensors should I be mostly looking at? Is i2c with variable slave address the best option here since I would be able to read all of the sensors with a single i2c bus? What about the i2c speed when connecting 50 sensors?
Any advice is appreciated!
For those who do not know what is pack to light system have a look here:
https://sdi.systems/pack-to-light/
So my general idea is that I will have a number / each one will have and LED and some sort of sensor(IR, Proximity?). I will be scanning the barcode of the item and based on that item, certain boxes will be lit indicating that I need to grab from that particular box.
Now my main concern is what microcontroller to pick for this particular task. Since I am not a programming or electronics expert, I would like to make it as simple to use but have a possibility to expand the system later. I have experience with Arduinos and stm32 mcu's. Since I will need a large amount of items to sort ( Lets say up to 50 boxes), each box will need to have a sensor and an LED connected to it.
What are my options in terms of suitable microcontrollers/ dev boards /nucleo boards available in the market?
What sensors should I be mostly looking at? Is i2c with variable slave address the best option here since I would be able to read all of the sensors with a single i2c bus? What about the i2c speed when connecting 50 sensors?
Any advice is appreciated!