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The Campbell Scientific Cr6 computer was selected for level 1 due to its proven reliability. Campbell Scientific delivers robust computers for data sampling and control. Their computers have been successfully used for projects in cold environments such as long-term monitoring in Greenland, maritime environments with movement and vibrations such as a buoy system in the Caribbean Sea and in systems with strict reliability requirements such as weather stations at military airports. The Campbell Scientific CR6 uses a Renesas RX63N processor with a clock rate of 100 MHz and has 16 general I/O pins with dedicated hardware for support of numerous communication protocols. The CR6 was chosen over other similar products from Campbell Scientific due to the need of I/O ports. The CPU in the CR6 is also among the fastest in their product range.
Implementation of software on the CR6 is done with the use of PC400 Datalogger Support Software and CR Basic Editor. The PC400 Datalogger support software serves several functions. First of all, it enables the user to send program code and retrieve data from the unit via USB interface with a Windows computer. It also lets the user set the internal clock of the CR6 easily. With the Windows program, publicly declared variables can be read in real time from the device via the USB cable to ease the process of debugging. Unfortunately, the software does not support debugging with the use of common tools such as breakpoints and memory access. The lack of such tools does increase development time significantly and should be taken into account when planning development of future system functions.
The CR Basic editor lets the user write programs for the CR6 device. The editor has a built-in compile function that will check for faults such as syntax errors and incorrect memory allocation, but the program is recompiled on the CR6 device after it has been transferred to the device. The file extension of the programs that are sent to the CR6 is “.CR6”. Figure
