I've done more than a couple PIC projects but this one's upped the ante and
I'm trying to decide if I should throw a whole handful of PICs at it or
should I move on to something else. I think your considered opinions might
be some use here so...

This is a testbed application for a local engineering college to study some
aspect of vehicle dynamics, I'm under NDA for most of the details, but
here's the broad strokes:
It will be on the car, mostly in the engine compartment (electrical noise
and mass issues)
Primary task is to run a PID loop between a linear encoder and a brushless
motor ~10mS update rate
Monitor several sensors and perform an unspecified (complicated, possibly
floating point) algorithm to control the position of the motor
Sensors include at least one remote node (probably CAN), 3x ADC, 2x timers
and an accelerometer (probably an Analog ADXL...)
Filter and log the data (~40 bytes @ 20Hz for minimum 10 minutes)
Allow non-electronics types to retrieve the data and modify the algorithm in
the field (I'm thinking USB or SD memory card)

Now I've done most of this before with PICs, but never all at the same time.
I'm thinking that I could segment the project and have a separate PIC manage
each task. Something like a PIC18FXX31 with it's quadrature encoder and
motor control hardware could easily handle the servo, another PIC to monitor
the sensors, one more to process the algorithm. Put them all on some type of
bus and add another to just sniff the bus and log the relevant data.

Sure, it's a plan - but is it a good plan?

There's obviously other options, even in the MChip family, a DSPIC or one of
the new PIC24s. Or I could just move on to something else ARM7, ARM9,
Freescale 56F8xxx, FPGA with soft core(s), PC104 SBC, etc, etc.

Thoughts?

-Denny

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