Common Terminology

Team & Car Specific

Riv3, Riv3S… - shorthand for the Rivanna3 car, Rivanna3S car, etc.
Board - printed circuit boards with a microcontroller, designed by Hardware Integration but programmed by Embedded and Telemetry
- Rivanna3 has PowerBoard, WheelBoard, and TelemetryBoard
Fault - a critical error where the car MUST stop / shutdown for safety reasons. Faults are almost always from the BMS and Motor Controller
BMS, BPS - Battery Management / Protection System, the system that controls the battery
LV, HV - low voltage, high voltage
- LV hardware is managed by Hardware Integration, HV hardware is managed by Power, Solar, Hardware Integration

STM chip - one of the microcontrollers we use, made by ST Microelectronics
ST-Link - the physical device used to upload code
GPIO - General Purpose Input / Output pins, these pins are used to input and output digital signals
3V3 - 3.3 volts, the voltage we interact with most of the time
High, Low - the voltage is at its maximum or minimum, used in reference to digital signals

CAN - Controller Area Network, a common communication line that runs throughout the car, purple cable
- described in much detail in the Development Guide
UART, I2C, SPI - various serial communication protocols we use

“Upload” code - copy a binary executable to the microcontroller, industry term is “flashing”, but the team has always called it uploading
Buffer - a set size block of memory that temporarily holds data, data is copied into and out of a buffer
Interrupt - when some ‘hardware event’ occurs (ex. IO event), the microcontroller pauses the code it is currently running to run another function to handle the event
IO - input / output operations
Polling - constantly checking some hardware condition until the condition is met (ex. reading a pin in an infinite while loop)
Real Time Operating System (RTOS) - library that provides threading and synchronization support