ARDHAT adds Arduino Shield Compatibility, an ISM Band Radio to Raspberry Pi and ODROID-C1 Boards (Crowdfunding)

NinjaBlocks created Pi Crust add-ons board adding a 433MHz radio and Arduino compatibility to the Raspberry Pi Model A & B a few years ago, but the product has since been removed from their store. But a startup called ubIQio has now created a similar product compatible with Raspberry Pi Model A+, B+ and B2, as well as ODROID-C1 which also comes with a 40-pin R-Pi header. The ARDHAT board is a HAT compatible add-on board with an Atmel MCU, Arduino headers, as well as an optional long range mesh ISM radio (433, 868 and 915 MHz) and various sensors.

There are four versions of the board: Basic Ardhat, Ardhat-I, and Ardhat-W and Ultra, which share the following specifications:

• MCU – Atmel MCU @ 16MHz
• Headers and I/Os
  • Arduino compatible header accepting 5V Arduino shields
  • 12 ch PWM O/P, 6 ch analog I/P
• Real-time Clock
• Programmable Power/Navigation combo switch
• Programmable wakeup/watchdog
• ‘Zero CPU’ SmartLED driver
• Charge status & programmable LEDS
• Power Supply
  • External 8-28V power input
  • High Power 3A 5V O/P;
  • Full Battery backup/UPS
  • Standard LiPo battery connector
  • Ext and LiPo voltage monitors
  • MPPT solar ready
  • > 1,000 hour sleep mode operation with 1,800 mAh battery
• Dimensions – 65 x 56.5 mm – RPi HAT standard compliant with EEPROM

Ardhat-I adds a few features to the basic version including a 1,800 mAh battery, support for 9-DOF sensor fusion (MPU9250) with a 3-axis gyroscope, a 3-axis magnetometer (compass), a 3-axis accelerometer, as well as a barometer and thermometer (BMP180). Ardhat-W and Ultra gets all these, plus a long range mesh ISM band radio, respectively HopeRF Electronic RFM69-HCW and RFM69W radio modules.

If you plan to use this board with ODROID-C1 you may need to bend its IR receiver in order to connect Ardhat. The board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE just like any Arduino board, but running on Raspberry Pi or ODROID-C1 board. I’d assume Ardhat might also work with other boards featuring a 40-pin R-Pi header.

The project is now listed on Kickstarter, where ubiQio aims to raise £25,000 or more (~$36,600) . Basic Ardhat goes for £19 (early bird)/ £25 standard ($28/$36), you’ll need to pledge £35/£40 for Arhat-I with the extra sensors and battery, and £45 for Ardhat-W and £55 for Ardhat-U with the company claiming 500 meters range for the former and 15 km range for the latter. All rewards include free shipping to US and Europe, but they won’t ship to the rest of the world at all even for boards without radio modules. Shipping is scheuled for August and September 2015.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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