The past 48 hours have been quite a ride. I really should be heading off to sleep, but instead…here I am posting on my blog.

I spent the better part of yesterday evening right until around 8-9am today developing the serial routine (Linux side of it) and configuring/setting up Ubuntu v8.04 on my MBP under Parallels.

I’ll be using this to run all the ‘development’ code, directly from my laptop. Since morning however, I started on another project - implementing Cyclic Redundancy Checks (CRC) with both the MCU and the Linux (A.I.) aspect of the project taking the utmost focus.

For those who have never heard of CRC, it is basically where polynomical arithmetic is performed to perform ‘division’ in modulo 2, and depending on the complexity of the method employed and divisor implemented ‘burst’ and other errors can be detected.

I have focused my efforts on the following:

• CRC-CCITT: x¹⁶ + x¹² + x⁵ + 1
• CRC-16: x¹⁶ + x¹⁵ + x² + 1
• CRC-32: x³² + x²⁶ + x²³ + x²² + x¹⁶ + x¹² + x¹¹ + x¹⁰ + x⁸ + x⁷ + x⁵ + x⁴ + x² + x¹ + 1

The polynomials (you can work it out) work out to be 0×1021 for CRC-CCITT, 0xA001 for CRC-16, and 0xEDB88320L for CRC-32.

Long story short, I have written quite a programs and header files to incorporate into the code for the robot and here are some results I’ve obtained.

This is the look-up table generated for CRC-CCITT. I have also been able to program a ‘direct’ method that is ideal for running on MCUs. All the code can compute the CRC of a single byte to strings, which is handy as I can implement a 8-byte (or more) RS232 payload and easily obtain the CRC value for transmission!

CRC-16 (CCITT)/Polynomial: 0x1021
0x0000, 0x1021, 0x2042, 0x3063, 0x4084, 0x50A5, 0x60C6, 0x70E7,
0x8108, 0x9129, 0xA14A, 0xB16B, 0xC18C, 0xD1AD, 0xE1CE, 0xF1EF,
0x1231, 0x0210, 0x3273, 0x2252, 0x52B5, 0x4294, 0x72F7, 0x62D6,
0x9339, 0x8318, 0xB37B, 0xA35A, 0xD3BD, 0xC39C, 0xF3FF, 0xE3DE,
0x2462, 0x3443, 0x0420, 0x1401, 0x64E6, 0x74C7, 0x44A4, 0x5485,
0xA56A, 0xB54B, 0x8528, 0x9509, 0xE5EE, 0xF5CF, 0xC5AC, 0xD58D,
0x3653, 0x2672, 0x1611, 0x0630, 0x76D7, 0x66F6, 0x5695, 0x46B4,
0xB75B, 0xA77A, 0x9719, 0x8738, 0xF7DF, 0xE7FE, 0xD79D, 0xC7BC,
0x48C4, 0x58E5, 0x6886, 0x78A7, 0x0840, 0x1861, 0x2802, 0x3823,
0xC9CC, 0xD9ED, 0xE98E, 0xF9AF, 0x8948, 0x9969, 0xA90A, 0xB92B,
0x5AF5, 0x4AD4, 0x7AB7, 0x6A96, 0x1A71, 0x0A50, 0x3A33, 0x2A12,
0xDBFD, 0xCBDC, 0xFBBF, 0xEB9E, 0x9B79, 0x8B58, 0xBB3B, 0xAB1A,
0x6CA6, 0x7C87, 0x4CE4, 0x5CC5, 0x2C22, 0x3C03, 0x0C60, 0x1C41,
0xEDAE, 0xFD8F, 0xCDEC, 0xDDCD, 0xAD2A, 0xBD0B, 0x8D68, 0x9D49,
0x7E97, 0x6EB6, 0x5ED5, 0x4EF4, 0x3E13, 0x2E32, 0x1E51, 0x0E70,
0xFF9F, 0xEFBE, 0xDFDD, 0xCFFC, 0xBF1B, 0xAF3A, 0x9F59, 0x8F78,
0x9188, 0x81A9, 0xB1CA, 0xA1EB, 0xD10C, 0xC12D, 0xF14E, 0xE16F,
0x1080, 0x00A1, 0x30C2, 0x20E3, 0x5004, 0x4025, 0x7046, 0x6067,
0x83B9, 0x9398, 0xA3FB, 0xB3DA, 0xC33D, 0xD31C, 0xE37F, 0xF35E,
0x02B1, 0x1290, 0x22F3, 0x32D2, 0x4235, 0x5214, 0x6277, 0x7256,
0xB5EA, 0xA5CB, 0x95A8, 0x8589, 0xF56E, 0xE54F, 0xD52C, 0xC50D,
0x34E2, 0x24C3, 0x14A0, 0x0481, 0x7466, 0x6447, 0x5424, 0x4405,
0xA7DB, 0xB7FA, 0x8799, 0x97B8, 0xE75F, 0xF77E, 0xC71D, 0xD73C,
0x26D3, 0x36F2, 0x0691, 0x16B0, 0x6657, 0x7676, 0x4615, 0x5634,
0xD94C, 0xC96D, 0xF90E, 0xE92F, 0x99C8, 0x89E9, 0xB98A, 0xA9AB,
0x5844, 0x4865, 0x7806, 0x6827, 0x18C0, 0x08E1, 0x3882, 0x28A3,
0xCB7D, 0xDB5C, 0xEB3F, 0xFB1E, 0x8BF9, 0x9BD8, 0xABBB, 0xBB9A,
0x4A75, 0x5A54, 0x6A37, 0x7A16, 0x0AF1, 0x1AD0, 0x2AB3, 0x3A92,
0xFD2E, 0xED0F, 0xDD6C, 0xCD4D, 0xBDAA, 0xAD8B, 0x9DE8, 0x8DC9,
0x7C26, 0x6C07, 0x5C64, 0x4C45, 0x3CA2, 0x2C83, 0x1CE0, 0x0CC1,
0xEF1F, 0xFF3E, 0xCF5D, 0xDF7C, 0xAF9B, 0xBFBA, 0x8FD9, 0x9FF8,
0x6E17, 0x7E36, 0x4E55, 0x5E74, 0x2E93, 0x3EB2, 0x0ED1, 0x1EF0

Since I really wanted to be sure that my code was bullet-proof, I decided to perform the CRC calculations on a 26-byte payload - the entire alphabet in ASCII from ‘ABC to XYZ’.

File 'crc32_lookup.c' compiled on Jul 7 2008 at 21:33:48
ASCII 'A' / 0x0041 / 65
CRC-CCITT = 0x58E5 / 22757
CRC16 = 0x30C0 / 12480
CRC32 = 0xD3D99E8B
.
ASCII String '1234569789'
CRC-CCITT = 0x31C3 / 12739
CRC16 = 0xBB3D / 47933
CRC32 = 0xCBF43926
.
ASCII String 'ABC...XYZ'
CRC-CCITT = 0xE8AF / 59567
CRC16 = 0x18E7 / 6375
CRC32 = 0xABF77822

I am now going to port some code into my PIC compiler and have a play with CRC & serial comms sometime next week.

Unfortunately, I cannot release any of the code even in a ‘GNU’ state as this is going towards my Masters thesis. Stay tuned for an article on the inner workings of CRC!