Using the ESP32 Microcontroller for Data

Processing
Marek Babiuch Petr Foltýnek Pavel Smutný
Department of Control Systems and Department of Control Systems and Department of Control Systems and
Instrumentation Instrumentation Instrumentation
VSB - Technical University of Ostrava VSB - Technical University of Ostrava VSB - Technical University of Ostrava
Ostrava, Czech Repubic Ostrava, Czech Repubic Ostrava, Czech Repubic
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract — This article deals with experiences with the These articles summarize the main advantages of the
development of applications of the ESP32 microcontrollers and ESP32 chip, which includes: wide deployment capabilities,
provides a comprehensive review of the possibilities of support for Wi-Fi standards and protocols, low-cost solution.
applications development on this platform in the area of data However, these articles describe deploying a microcontroller
measurement and processing. Microcontrollers usually connect as a system that provides data as a web server and
with IoT modules and other smart sensors and provide data to communicates with the environment and the superior system.
the superior system. This paper also describes implementation In this article we will also attempt to describe the possibility
of application with the version of connected OLED display and of displaying measured data also on different types of displays
with ESP32 Wrover development board with integrated display.
directly on the microcontroller and displaying the status of the
Keywords—ESP32, IoT, microcontroller, measurement,
current data or system configuration for an immediate check
display, development boards, environment of the system status.

I. INTRODUCTION II. ESP32 MICROCONTROLLERS

At the present time, IoT, smart home automation and ESP32 is powerful SoC (System on Chip) microcontroller
embedded systems are rapidly developing. This is closely with integrated Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, dual mode Bluetooth
related to the development of available hardware modules and version 4.2 and variety of peripherals. It is an advanced
processors. Development boards are produced on which a successor of the 8266 chip primarily in the implementation of
communication interface and peripherals are implemented two cores clocked in different version up to 240 MHz.
together with the main processor chip. Nowadays, the Compared to its predecessor, except these features, it also
popularity of the ESP32 chip grows and now both hardware extends the number of GPIO pins from 17 to 36, the number
variants of this chip and various branches of its software of PWM channels per 16 and is equipped with 4MB of flash
development are developing. A wide community of memory.
developers, but also academics deal with utilizing the higher The ESP32 chip has been developed by the Espressif
generation ESP32 chip as the successor of ESP8266 Systems company, which currently offers several ESP32
microcontroller. The latest scientific articles prove the wide versions of the SoC in the form of ESP32 Developer Kit, the
use of the ESP32 chip in various areas. The general ESP32 Wrover Kit, which also includes an SD card and 3.2 ''
possibilities of using a microcontroller with a LCD display and last but not least the ESP32 Azure IoT kit
recommendation for electronic projects are described in the with USB Bridge and other built-in sensors. In addition to
article [1]. Paper provides a comparative analysis of the Espressif Systems, other producers are devoted to these chips
ESP32 with some other market competitors and introduces the - SparkFun with ESP32 Thing DB, WeMoS with its TTGO,
microcontroller specification, features and programming D1, Lolin32 and Lolin D32, Adafruid (with Huzzah32), DF
details. An interesting solution to implement the ESP32 chip Robot (ESP32 FireBeeatle) and many other manufacturers
as a web server that works in real-time and can be effectively sometimes offer good and sometimes bad clones.
used for monitoring small solar energy systems is described in
[2]. The use of a microcontroller is possible with a wide range ESP32 includes two core (Xtensa LX6 processor made
of environmental monitoring sensors [3] whether it concerns with 40 nm technology). CPU cores can be individually
air pollution or directly the implementation of monitoring controlled. There is 520 KB of on-chip SRAM for data and
LPG leakage [4]. In contrast, article [5] describes the use of instructions available. Some SoC modules such as ESP32-
the chip as a monitoring IoT system in the health sector. The Wrover features 4 MB of external SPI flash and an additional
use of the chip as a secure communication system with LoRa 8 MB of SPI PSRAM (Pseudo static RAM). We have the
modules and implementation of cryptographic standards is possibility to use SPI, I2S, I2C, CAN, UART, Ethernet MAC,
described in the article [6], which deals with the and IR in various quantities, depending on the type of the
Communication System for Remote Microgrids using AES board. Standard equipment also includes Hall Effect sensor,
Cryptography on ESP32. The use of ESP32 as a control temperature sensor and touch sensor, other built-in sensors are
system also supports wireless networks using the article [7]. implemented in Azure IoT and Developer kit. SoC also
The ESP32 chip can also be used to monitor alarms of provides Cryptographic hardware acceleration: AES, SHA-2,
technological equipment for operator workplaces [8], RSA, and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and random
vibration monitoring [9] and nowadays practically in all areas number generator (RNG). Figure 1 shows the ESP32
where a monitoring embedded system is needed. microcontroller variants with which we are working at the
Department of Control System and Instrumentation.

978-1-7281-0702-8/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

 ESP32 boards are produced in prototype designs that can program is, as with the Arduino platform, assigned to the setup
be used in smart home applications, automation, wearables, function, which initializes the startup values of the
audio applications, cloud-based IoT applications, and more. It microcontroller and the loop function that is responsible for
is possible to choose a specific development kit or to design a running the program. When developing ESP32
custom embedded system built on the ESP32 microcontroller. microcontrollers, the loop function is always run on the first
processor core. However, we need to realize that the ESP32
core numbering starts from the zero index.
The benefits of using this environment are its simple
configuration and good community support. Using this
environment, you can very quickly start prototyping the
ESP32 microcontroller. This environment is designed for the
development of simpler projects, with complex projects being
a loss of clarity and sustainability of the project. At the same
time, this platform is ideal for achieving experience with the
development of the ESP32 microcontroller.

B. Espressif IoT Development Framework

If we decide to develop more sophisticated and optimized
Fig. 1. Various ESP32 boards which we tested embedded systems built on the ESP32 microcontroller, it is
advisable to choose the Espressif IoT Development
III. HOW TO DEVELOP APPLICATIONS Framework to enable us to develop applications in a native
way. The Espressif IoT Development Framework is an open
Development on the ESP32 platform gives us many ways source project which is available at GitHub source page [11].
to use. This section describes some basic setup and This framework includes basic configuration options for ESP,
configuration for the ESP32 platform environment. The source code compilation, and firmware downloader for
ESP32 device can be developed from any Windows, Linux or ESP32. The C language is used to develop applications. This
MacOS operating system. We will deal with this article framework is multiplatform but is natively developed under
primarily about setting up and configuring the development the Linux operating system where it can be configured most
environment on the Windows platform. We have the easily. To use a framework under the Windows operating
possibility to work with the ESP32 add-on environment for system, you need to install UNIX-like / POSIX emulation
Arduino, the Espressif IoT Development Framework native support, or use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
platform and the Python environment using the Micropython option as a part of Windows 10. Espressif in its installation
engine. wizard brings support for UNIX-like / POSIX environments
using the MSYS2 engine, which is distributed by a zip file.
A. Arduino Core for ESP32 This MSYS2 file contains all configurations for the
The easiest way to start writing code for the ESP32 development environment for ESP32 microcontrollers. The
platform is to use the Arduino platform. This is an open-source Espressif IoT Development Framework-based project
platform designed for fast prototyping based on Atmel management system is called Make. At the present time, the
microcontrollers. Software development for microcontrollers manager of the Make project migrates to support CMake,
is developed in the Arduino integrated development which has more tools for development environments. The
environment, which is written in Java. This is a software current version of the framework is 3.2 and is constantly using
developed from the learning environment, which has been the MAKE project report, but it is planned that version 4 will
slightly modified and enhanced by certain features such as be a temporary version, where the project management to
Wiring Language. Wiring is a programming language CMake is fully migrated. Like the Arduino core for ESP32
designed to program a microcontroller without specific Wi-Fi microcontroller extension to the Arduino platform, the
hardware knowledge and has a C ++ framework similarity. IoT Development Framework also implements the FreeRTOS
Wiring requires a microcontroller with a boot program. system support. Programming with the Espressif IoT
Nowadays Arduino IDE does not only support Atmel Development Framework require some procedures to be
microcontrollers, but other types of the microcontroller can be followed, otherwise the resulting project will not be
installed. Espressif therefore decided to use this option to compilable. Each project must contain a sdkconfig file that
create a plugin called the Arduino core for the ESP32 Wi-Fi stores information about the framework configuration for the
chip that installs support for the development of ESP32 project. The project configuration interface is invoked by
microcontrollers in the Arduino IDE environment. The executing the make menuconfig command. For example, this
Arduino core extension for ESP32 Wi-Fi chip is released as interface configures the port on which the device is located,
an open-source project whose source codes are located at [10]. the frequency at which the individual bus works, or whether
the FreeRTOS program is used in the configuration of one or
Espressif Company released the first stable version of the two ESP32 cores (Figure no. 2.) These data are important
Arduino core for ESP32 Wi-Fi chip in mid-2018S and has because they generate dependencies on the build process
standardized how to install support for Arduino IDE. based on the configured project.
FreeRTOS system support is provided to the Arduino core for
ESP32 Wi-Fi chip to enable task-based processing because the The next step is to build the program itself, which is called
ESP32 Chip is natively dual-core. Together with it provides by the make build command. If the build is all right, it is
support for optimizing the processing of specific tasks on a possible to upload the compiled program to the ESP32
particular core of the ESP32 chip. The start of the standard microcontroller. This is provided by the built-in firmware
flashing utility, which is called using the make flash
command. To monitor the application, you can use a built-in Uploading the program and library functions to the
monitor that runs with the make monitor command. microcontroller can be done using the python utility ampy,
which provides communication with the microcontroller over
the serial line. Despite this utility, any manipulation of the files
on the microcontroller is performed. The command to upload
the main.py file to the microcontroller looks like:
ampy -p <USB-to-Serial Port> put main.py
A terminal connection can be used to debug Python on a
microcontroller, for example, using the PuTTY program. You
can use any available text editor to write Python programs. We
use Visual Studio Code for these purposes.
This development approach is advantageous for
prototyping and developing new algorithmic solutions for
embedded systems based on MicroPython firmware. The
development difficulty is somewhat higher than on the
Fig. 2. The configuration of ESP project in IDF
Arduino platform because there is no simple interface, but it
is secured by a set of command line utilities.
The great advantage of using this framework is that you
can create applications at the lowest level. Therefore, this
framework is suited to the development of large and complex D. Other Development Possibillities
projects. The disadvantage of using a framework is the There are still other ways to develop an application for
relatively high initial experience of the developer that the ESP32 microcontrollers, for example by using the Lua
embedded system will develop. The community around this programming language with the appropriate firmware, or by
framework is also not as wide as the Arduino platform. using the JavaScript programming language. Another option
is to use some of the commercial projects such as Zerynth [13]
C. MicroPython that support ESP32 microcontrollers too. However, we have
not tested these platforms yet. Our goal in this section was to
Some manufacturers that produce ESP32 chip-based
describe the most commonly used open-source approaches for
development boards now use MicroPython environments as
embedded system development on the ESP32 microcontroller
default firmware. The most common are ESP32-Wrover
on Windows platforms and to compare the experience with
chips, which are usually available with PSRAM. MicroPython
their use.
is a lightweight implementation of the Python 3 programming
language that includes a subset of Python's standard libraries
and is optimized for running on microcontrollers. The IV. ESP32 APPLICATION
advantage of Python as a programming language is that it can The experience gained from the use of individual
be learned quite quickly. In case the ESP32 microcontroller development environments on the Windows platform has
does not contain MicroPython firmware, it is possible to been used in the practical implementation of various
upload this firmware to the given microcontroller. This is done applications in the field of acquisition and processing of
using the esptools utility, which is written in Python and measured data from IoT sensors on the ESP32
distributed via a pip package system that is native in Python microcontroller. The block diagram of the embedded system
environment. Subsequently, you need to download the is shown in Figure 3.
MicroPython Firmware, which is available on [12].
Uploading MicroPython Firmware is done using the
following command: esptool.py --chip esp32 -p <USB-to-
Serial Port> write_flash -z 0x1000 <path to .bin>
where a COM port through which the ESP32
microcontroller communicates with the development
computer is added to the <USB-to-Serial Port>, and a file
name and a MicroPython firmware path location are added to
the <path to .bin>. Now, after preparing the MicroPython
environment on the ESP32 microcontroller, we will learn
some basic programming rules. Each solution should contain
at least two files, boot.py and main.py. It corresponds to the
concept used in the Arduino platform. The boot.py file defines Fig. 3. Block scheme of the embedded system
the initialization of the variables to be set at the start of the
microcontroller, and main.py contains the microcontroller In this article, we focused on the visualization of measured
program that is executed without delay after initializing the data on a display that is part of our embedded system. The
variables in the boot.py file. If we need to use other library communication buses are different depending on the type and
functions that are not implemented in the fundamental size of the display and the size of the display depends on what
MicroPython firmware, these library functions must also be kind of information we will display. For lower resolution
flashed to the device. Typically, these are libraries that provide displays, we decided to show only the status information and
communication and behavior of a particular hardware we sent the measured data for the evaluation to the superior
element, such as displays, sensors and IoT modules, etc. system. The information we show on the given display is, for
example, whether the microcontroller has a network
connection, which current job is processing, what the actual B. Application with OLED Display 0,96”
measurement cycle is, etc. On displays that have a higher size This display has a resolution of 128x64 pixels. It is
and resolution, we also show the graphical flow of the produced in the I2C or SPI version. We have used the I2C
measured values in addition to the status information. In case communication interface in our application, because we
we simultaneously measured multiple variables at the same wanted to reduce the HW complexity of our solution. The
time, only the chart for one quantity was displayed, with the display is programmed the same as the 0.91-inch OLED
possibility of switching between graphs of the measured display variant, the only difference being in the display
quantities. We have used multiple types of displays for our number of pixels and rows. Although this display is 2 times
embedded system. larger than the previous one, it is inappropriate to draw the
measurement chart. Therefore we display more detailed status
information on this display with this resolution than on the
previous one. The figure 4 shows using of 0.96-inch display.
ESP32 microcontrollers are produced in different versions and
one of the variants is an integrated 0.96 inch display directly
on the board. If this is sufficient for our application, we can
use this development board. Figure 6 shows the integrated
display on the ESP32 board with status information. We
displays wireless connection again, this time with IP address,
number of measured samples and output file.

Fig. 4. ESP32 microcontroller, sensors, display and SD card storage

A. Application with OLED Display 0,91”

This display has a resolution of 128x32 pixels and its
communication interface is I2C. This small display resolution
enable showing only the status information of the application.
For this OLED display, the SSD1306 library is used. This
library can be downloaded for Arduino Platform from [14],
for ESP IDF framework from [15] and library for
MicroPython from [16]. These OLED displays work so that
only activated points are lights. Using this library in the source
code is not complicated. Communication initialization (I2C or
SPI) is performed to create a display object over which Fig. 6. Using of ESP32 board with integrated OLED display
individual methods are invoked to design the graphical
appearance of the display. Each platform has different call C. Application with Integrated Display 2,4”
methods for uploading information to the display buffer.
Figure 5 shows the example of the status information about Espressif Company with introducing the new ESP32
the wireless network connection (shown in cutting part) and Wrover chip has also launched a new development kit that
the status information with the number of measured data and uses this microcontroller.
the output file.

Fig. 5. Status information of microcontroller on 0,91” display

The use of SSD1306 may be different depending on which

program environment (Arduino, ESP IDF, Micropython) we
are programming.

Fig. 7. Measured data on ESP32 Wrover integrated display

The big advantage is that a 320x240 color LCD display is IDF platform, in which development is provided through C
already natively installed on this kit, which communicates via language with a native firmware downloader.
the 4-wire Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). Espessif's GitHub We can encounter quite often MicroPython on new boards
[17] contains a free library for working with the LCD display with ESP32 Wrover chip, which features advantages of
on the Wrover development kit. From the point of view of Python language properties and allows application
programming, access is similar to previous displays. Because development both procedurally and with the use of object-
it is a larger resolution of the display, it is possible to display oriented design.
the graphical waveform of the measured values on this
display. Due to the fact that the library provides only the We often encounter the problems of visualization of
Application Programming Interface (API), it is necessary to measured data and system diagnostics during developing an
embedded system. Some development boards with ESP32
program the plotted charts. This part is relatively difficult for
microcontrollers are already produced with an integrated
debugging and testing compared to displaying only the status
display of various sizes. In our article, we describe an
information on the display. Therefore, it is very important to experience with an application design that uses different types
consider whether we want to use the feature on our embedded of displays. We can recommend from our experiences with
system. If we decide that charts are necessary, it's a good idea application development that the status information is better
to create a graph component that makes it easier for us to work to display on small displays, and larger displays can also
with charts. Figure 7 shows measured data directly on the display real-time data. The more graphic information we want
integrated display. Because we measured more quantities at to show on the display, the more difficult the application is
the same time, we have programmed a change in the display and the more demanding for the developer. So, if we decide to
of quantities over a certain time interval. Figure 8 shows other display graphics in real-time, it's a good idea to create a graph
measured variables. The display of accelerometer sensor component that has the responsibility for chart plotting and is
values and temperature measurement values changes independent of the hardware implementation of the display
cyclically. work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the European Regional
Development Fund in the Research Centre of Advanced
Mechatronic Systems project, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019
/0000867 within the Operational Programme Research,
Development and Education and the project SP2019/51
Applied Research in the Area of Machine and Process Control
supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

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