Members of the DesignSpark engineering community can now use Python to program microcontrollers for blockchain and IoT applications through the DesignSpark Zerynth Studio suite, which is available to download free of charge via a portal on the DesignSpark website.
The Zerynth Studio toolkit enables fast IoT application development, with high-level standards of security, as developers can program in Python or a hybrid C/Python language on the most popular 32-bit microcontrollers and connect them to cloud infrastructures, according to RS.
The move opens up the use of Zerynth for IoT applications and embedded development to the huge community of programmers who use Python, a powerful programming language.
The extension of the DesignSpark Zerynth Studio middleware toolkit is made possible with the introduction of the open-source Zerynth Ethereum Library. It allows microcontrollers to generate and sign Ethereum transactions based on just a few lines of Python. Ethereum is an open-source distributed-computing platform that generates the blockchain for the Ether crypto-currency.
The Ethereum library therefore provides developers with easy connection to the Ethereum blockchain and to use smart contracts and seamlessly integrate IoT devices with decentralised applications (DApps). The ability to generate, sign and send transactions from a microcontroller enables any device capable of running the cryptography algorithms to directly take advantage of smart contracts, which deliver credible and trackable transactions, thereby removing the need for centralised gateways as well as avoiding possible points of failure.
"Having the possibility to generate, sign and send transactions from the inside of a microcontroller enables any device capable of running the cryptography algorithms to directly take advantage of smart contracts, removing centralised gateways and points of failure,” said Giacomo Baldi, CTO of Zerynth. “This can be applied to many different fields, and increases trust between consumers and third parties.”
The DesignSpark Zerynth Studio middleware toolkit for Windows, Mac and Linux is available to download for free from https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/zerynth for all new and existing members of the DesignSpark community.