Design of a single chip Digital Weighing Machine using ATmega32 microcontroller architecture

Abstract

Now-a-days, the sales centres are using Digital Weighing Machines (DWM) for precision measurement of weight, acquisition of rate from keypad and computation of cost. The weight, rate and cost are shown on 7-segment bright display devices. The implementation of a DWM can be carried out using various types of hardware topologies and accordingly the cost varies. The FPGA based DWM is the most competitive one; but, the technology is beyond affordability of the small business houses due to very high initial capital investment for the design and fabrication of the FPGA chip. It is possible to realize a DWM of moderate cost using an ATmega32 microcontroller, which provides almost a single chip design particularly owing to its high-power (20mA) 32-IO lines, which can directly drive 7-segment display devices, ADC, and Keypad. In this paper, we have presented the design methodology of an ATmega32 based DWM, which has been prototyped and tested using RMCKIT.