The HMI solution I find most attractive is stand-alone TFT solutions with UART as interface. I have used a few off-the-shelf displays earlier and the concept is great, but I want to evolve this a bit beyon just a stand-alone TFT – I want a complete, plug & play solution.
These displays interface to embedded solutions using a UART. You pre-program the graphics in a GPU and use the UART to exchange data only. This is an excellent solution and concept, but I lack a few components.
- Using a TFT for data input is not always convenient, I often need custom keys and knobs to make up the rest of a panel.
- I don’t always want to pre-load the graphics design, I want an option to download graphics from the embedded system using XML alike formats.
- I want to chose wherever I use Web, PC, Raspberry PI or something else based on my needs without having to program x number of HMI Interfaces.
- Graphics quality must be high!
- And at last, but not least – customization factor needs to be very high.
I have already started a HMI project with a HMI Designer for a Desktop, Raspberry PI, Android or iPad etc. This is still a bit work in progress, but what I want to add is the embedded “HMI Browser”.
This is just an example display – this is a barebone TFT with a dumb adapter that is perfect for my plans and it exist loads of these. I want more options than a single display, but this is a start. The base concept is that I stack a HMI adapter with the GPU behind this – and as the adapter will be a Hat I can add whatever I want to this again.
I will finish my 3Phase/PWM board first, but this is my next project. Completion of a HMI solution for my projects is long overdue!