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Hardware Configurations
The full implementation of ANT is represented in Fig. Hw1.
The line SRQ (Service ReQuest) need not be present, but can be extremely useful for advanced operation.
MNC is the Master Network Controller. It can be a microcontroller board with USART but i can also be (and often is, especially during application developing and system configuration) a PC. In this case the SRQ line, is present, connectes to the CTS signal of the TTL RS232 adapter that also connects to RX and TX on the MNC side.
SND are Slave Networked Devices. At present they can be either ATMEGA328 or ATtiny2313 microcontroller. TX and RX connect to the USART pins and SRQ to another pin (to be specified).
Operation of the system proceeds as follows.
All SNDs runs their respective main codes. ANT provides for transparently managin communication and interaction between MNC and SNDs.
Normally (in the absence of the SRQ line or in the absence of a Service ReQuest by the Slaves) communication is initiated by the MNC according to the following procedure:
- MNC sends a BREAK
- All SNDs disconnect their TX terminal from the network (actually in normal operation there may only be 1 or none TX connected to the network at any given time;
- MNC sends the address of the SND to be connected to the network
- All SNDs receive the address. Only the one with the internal address equal to that sent by the MNC connects its TX to the network.
- Communication between MNC and the selected SND can now proceed very much as the other SNDs where not present in the network.