A Didactic Processor and Simulator for IoT

Programming a processor detached from real world is no longer a valid approach in Internet of the Things (IoT) era. Nowadays a processor must interact with sensors and actuators and also with others systems through internet. However, introducing IoT concepts in a didactic and easy way in beginners classes of computer architecture is not an easy task. In this paper we present the architecture of a didactic processor and simulator designed to seamlessly interact with sensors and actuators, intended to introduce IoT concepts in computer architecture and assembly language programming courses. This simulator can be executed on a Raspberry Pi nanocomputer, where it is possible to read and control sensors and actuators connected to the GPIO pins, directly from the code executed by the simulator. Another extension implemented in the simulator is the access to external microcontrollers, such as Arduino and NodeMCU, connected to a computer using Firmata protocol. This access is performed via USB or WiFi connection, and makes feasible to control any device connected to the microcontroller’s pins. As far as we know, there is no other educational tool that offers such features, at this architectural level, freely available for use.